


I never knew home until I found your hands

by languageintostillair



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (Rated T for the most part), A never-ending love story about all the little things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Can mostly be read as self-contained episodes, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-01-23 05:09:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 73,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageintostillair/pseuds/languageintostillair
Summary: A woman punches a man at an office party.This is the story of how they fall in love.(An Office AU that hardly ever takes place in an office.)
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 710
Kudos: 810





	1. A woman punches a man

**Author's Note:**

> A standalone/continuation of the story that I inadvertently started as part of my [Fictober project](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848634). I’ve tweaked all of the existing nine parts I wrote for that series, so the story should flow better. Regardless, there still isn’t a proper plot. It’s just about how two people fall in love, and how seemingly insignificant actions can feel so monumental in that journey. So I’m writing it as if I’m just letting their relationship grow, and I’ll add instalments when I feel like it.
> 
> In this verse, Brienne is about 25, Jaime is 33 or 34. There’s no twincest, but Jaime and Cersei still had a toxic codependent relationship, and she was very controlling, though I don't go into that much detail. Cersei’s married to Rhaegar instead of Robert, because I started this story with Renly as just a regular colleague of Brienne’s.
> 
> The title is from a song called ‘My Favourite Book’ by Stars. The song has the same kind of softness that comes across in this fic, but obviously it isn’t about a relationship that starts with one person punching another. I just thought taking that line and putting it in this context would be hilarious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll be posting a chapter a day of the existing ones I’ve written, but I’m spending November trying to wrap things up with [The Assignment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711024). I am planning at least two more chapters of this to go out this month (possibly even next week), but will try to focus my attention on my other fic.

Honestly, Brienne didn’t think it would get this out of hand.

She had only said those words because she wanted to shut them up. She didn’t think it was going to _spread around the entire office_.

And she definitely, _definitely_ didn’t think Jaime Lannister would ever hear about it.

It was just driving Brienne insane, the way Renly, Loras, and Margaery kept going on and on and on about how hot their boss is. Jaime Lannister is beautiful, okay? She knows this. She was born with eyes. Unfortunately, she was also born with ears. And it felt like she was hearing about it _all the time_.

One morning, it just—happened. She said those fateful words. And she would find herself wishing, eventually, that she hadn’t been born with a mouth.

She had been working late the night before, which had caused her to oversleep, which had caused her to miss her bus to the train station, which had caused her to miss her train, which had caused her to miss the office shuttle, which had caused her to have to walk an extra fifteen minutes in the heat. And of course, when she finally arrived, covered in sweat, she had passed Jaime Lannister in the hallway, and he had given her a _look_. Whatever the _look_ meant, she didn’t like it.

So the one thing she didn’t want to have to listen to while having her morning coffee in the office pantry was yet another inane conversation about Jaime Lannister’s hotness. A conversation in which she was expected to be an enthusiastic participant.

“What if I don’t see it?” she finally huffed, before taking the last sip of coffee from her mug.

Renly, Loras, and Margaery went quiet, so it _did_ shut them up, at least. “What do you mean, Brienne?” Margaery finally asked, all incredulity.

“I just don’t see it. He looks average to me.” And then she got up, rinsed her mug, and left the pantry.

Okay, so it hadn’t been very wise to say this when the conversation wasn’t exactly private. They hadn’t been the only four people in the pantry, and soon, everyone in the office was talking about how Brienne Tarth thinks Jaime Lannister looks average. And Brienne knew people only talked about it so much because she isn’t much to look at, and he is. He _really is._ She was born with eyes.

But she thought it would be _fine. _Jaime Lannister isn’t even their real boss, not directly anyway. He’s the son of the owner of the corporation that employs them, and he was just supposed to spend three months in the Stormlands office, in itself only a mid-sized regional branch of this corporate empire. He was coming to the end of those intended three months, and she knew he was about to be transferred back to the head office in King’s Landing. He’d be gone soon, and that would be the end of that.

Then, for whatever reason—some conflict within the family, apparently—that didn’t happen.

Jaime Lannister _stayed_.

Worse—Jaime Lannister _heard._

Not only did he _hear_, he _overheard it at an office party_. When everyone, including him, was already quite drunk. Except Jaime Lannister was the only one who wasn’t in a celebratory mood—probably because of that conflict within the family, whatever it was.

And so he had walked up to Brienne, and Renly, and Loras, and Margaery. He had tapped Brienne on the shoulder, and said, quite bitterly:

“So, you’re the one who thinks I look _average_.”

All four of them just stared at him. What was Brienne supposed to say? She couldn’t tell him to his face that she thought he wasn’t good-looking. Even if he wasn’t, she wouldn’t do that _to his face_. She’d had enough of that herself, growing up.

But then, he sneered: “You? You think you’re a good judge of beauty?”

Oh, she knew the insults were coming. She knew Jaime Lannister was quite drunk. But Brienne was also quite drunk. So when he asked her if she had looked in the mirror lately—as if she hadn’t heard that one a thousand times before—she could feel the anger rise within her.

“Or maybe you have. What’s your name again? Bridget? Bridget the Beauty, is that what you think when you look in the mirror?”

_Brienne the Beauty. _He couldn’t have known about the history of that phrase, but he had stumbled upon it anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t have lost control if he hadn’t said _that_.

“No wonder you wouldn’t know beauty if it punched you in the face,” Jaime Lannister concluded, in all his alcohol-soaked smugness.

Next thing she knew, she had punched _him_. In the face.

And now she is sitting in HR, next to Jaime Lannister. Who has a black eye, which she inflicted, in front of the entire office.

She is absolutely going to lose her job in the next five minutes.

Except, if she heard right, Jaime Lannister had just said: “I fell. She wasn’t responsible for this.”

Brienne turns, and just looks at him. She thought this only happened in cartoons, but her jaw might just have dropped in shock.

“You… fell? Mr Lannister, Ms Tarth punched you. We have multiple witnesses.”

“Well,” he says, quite calmly. “I am the son of the man who pays all those witnesses their monthly salary. And I say that Ms Tarth wasn’t responsible for this. Drop it.” Then, after a few seconds, he adds: “Please.”

Brienne knows she should say something. This isn’t right. _She punched her boss in the face._ But she just sits in stunned silence, stands up in stunned silence, leaves HR in stunned silence. Jaime Lannister said _drop it_—and _it_ was promptly _dropped_.

It’s only when they’re both out in the hallway, the door to HR firmly closed, that she’s able to say anything.

“You—you shouldn’t have done that. I did punch you, Mr Lannister.”

“Jaime. You can call me Jaime.” As if that was the only thing to be concerned about.

“_Mr Lannister._” It wouldn’t be appropriate at all to call him Jaime, would it? “I was responsible, and I should face the consequences. Why did you… lie? For me?”

Jaime Lannister sighs. “What I said, it was unworthy.”

_Unworthy? What century are we living in?_

“I’m—I’m not in a good place right now,” he continues, “and I’m sorry I said those things to you. I deserved that punch.”

“No, you didn’t,” Brienne asserts. “No one does. I overreacted because—”

She can’t complete the sentence. She can’t tell him about _Brienne the Beauty_. He seems to understand, though, because he has a kind of conciliatory expression on his face. She supposes he can’t tell her about _I’m not in a good place_, too.

“I feel like I did deserve it, anyway,” Jaime Lannister says. “And I’d have felt worse if you’d lost your job when I could have done something. Six months ago, I might have…” He trails off, an entire history implied in a few moments’ silence. “Anyway. I just didn’t want you to lose your job, Bridget.”

“Brienne,” she corrects him.

“I’m sorry. Brienne.”

“Okay then.” She takes a breath for what feels like the first time in the past hour, though she doesn’t quite feel relieved. “Thank you for doing that. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. If there’s ever anything you need, Mr Lannister—”

“Jaime is fine, really,” he replies, mildly exasperated. “Mr Lannister makes me sound like my father.”

“That’s not a good thing?” Brienne asks. She’s never met Tywin Lannister, but he did build this company into what it is today. She thought his son might enjoy the comparison.

Jaime just shrugs, a cryptic tension in his shoulders. “Since you’ve given me a black eye, I’d say we’re past those formalities, aren’t we?”

“I—I suppose. Alright then. Jaime. Thank you, again. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess.”

She’s walked a few steps in the direction of her cubicle when Jaime calls her back.

“Hey, Brienne?”

She turns to see him tilting his head at her, and she’s struck by the absurd thought that he reminds her of an earnest puppy. “Yes, J-Jaime?”

“Do you really think I only look average?”

Oh. He actually seems to care about that. She wants to explain, about the way everyone was going on about his looks, and how it was driving her mad. About oversleeping, and missing buses and trains and shuttles, and—maybe not so much the look he had given her in the hallway, but the part after, about wanting to enjoy her coffee in silence.

But all she can manage is, “N-no. I don’t.”

Jaime Lannister gives her a half-smile. “Good to know,” he says, and walks away.


	2. A woman dances with a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, so I upped the rating already, because I just wrote Chapter 10 (which I'll post next week) and… yeah. It's... detailed. Most of this will continue to be T-rated, so it feels a tad misrepresentative, but I thought it best to give everyone a heads up about it.

For the past few weeks, Brienne Tarth has been dancing with Jaime Lannister.

Not in a club. Not in a ballroom. Not even in one of those classes at the gym that Margaery keeps trying to drag her to.

They have been dancing in the Stormlands office of Lannister Corp. For _weeks_.

When Brienne returned to her cubicle, job still intact even after, well, _punching the son of the owner of the company in the face_—everyone in the office was bewildered. “He felt bad,” was all Brienne could offer, lamely, to anyone who dared to ask. She wasn’t quite sure herself how it had happened either. Their whole conversation in the hallway outside HR—the one which had ended, bizarrely, with him asking her to confirm her opinion on his looks—it had all felt like a dream.

_Good to know_, he had said. Like he really cared what Brienne thought about him. She didn’t tell anyone about that part. Especially not Renly, and Loras, and Margaery.

And then, the dance began.

She wasn’t conscious of the dance, for the first few days. Jaime had to walk by her cubicle if he wanted to go to the pantry, she reasoned. Or if he wanted to make copies of any documents at the copy machine. Perhaps it wasn’t the most direct route, but it wasn’t that much of a detour, either. He would walk by, and he would say her name in greeting. She would say his name in response. And on the way back, he would simply smile at her, the same half-smile he had given her when he had said, _Good to know._

On the third day, once Jaime had passed her desk after offering her that half-smile, Margaery rolled over in her chair from her own cubicle.

“Brienne,” she whispered, even though Jaime was already out of earshot.

“Yes?” Brienne replied, absently, still preoccupied with trying to perfect the phrasing of the email she was in the middle of composing.

“What’s going on with you and Jaime Lannister?”

Brienne’s fingers paused on her keyboard. She didn’t like the slyness in Margery’s tone. “I wasn’t aware there was anything _going on_.”

Margaery swung Brienne’s chair to face her. “You’re telling me that you came out of that meeting with HR three days ago, and suddenly you’re on first name basis with him, not to mention he’s been walking by your cubicle multiple times a day—and there’s _nothing going on_?”

“He needs to go to the pantry. Make copies,” she explained, already feeling the emptiness of it. She wasn’t sure what Margaery was trying to imply at that point, but whatever it was, it was not a conversation she was prepared to have.

“I’m 95% sure he has his own espresso machine in his office, Brienne. And an assistant to make copies for him.”

“Maybe he thinks mixing with the plebeians is good for office morale.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Margaery said, but Brienne swung her chair back to face her computer before Margaery could continue, and insistently began typing again. She could feel Margaery rolling her eyes behind her.

As much as Brienne didn’t want to acknowledge the dance—she’d made that mistake before, with Renly, until she realised he was spending far more time with Loras—Jaime just kept walking by her cubicle. He didn’t _have to_, did he? He has an espresso machine, and an assistant. Margaery’s words bounced around in Brienne’s brain, to her utter annoyance, all through the weekend.

So when the next week came around, Brienne felt compelled to respond in some way. To figure out her part in the dance. She started finding reasons to walk by _his_ office, too. He had his own, of course, and it was behind a wall of glass, so she couldn’t greet him with his name the way he greeted her when he came to her cubicle. But she could smile at him through the glass, at least, and he could smile at her. Even if he was in the middle of something—a meeting, a phone call, whatever. Brienne guessed she was hard to miss, with her height.

That was how it went, for the first three weeks after the meeting with HR. They hadn’t even had a real conversation since that day. Unfortunately for her, Renly and Loras had caught on, too, and she was having to field questions and looks and comments from them in addition to Margaery. Given that other people in the office would stop their conversations abruptly whenever she appeared, Brienne knew she hadn’t escaped being the subject of their gossip.

But nothing had _happened_, really, between her and Jaime. Well, nothing besides Brienne not losing her job after punching him in the face. She wasn’t lying when she said again and again that there was nothing going on.

In any case, it felt safe, this dance. It was just greetings, and smiles, and nods of the head. Brienne suspected Jaime liked its safety too, though she couldn’t claim to know him very well at all.

And then, the dance stopped. For three whole days.

All because she had been in the stairwell at exactly the wrong moment.

Brienne had the habit of hiding in the stairwell, sometimes, if she ever needed a breather in the middle of the day. She’d go up a floor or two, dust off a step, and just sit there. It’s somewhere to be away from everyone for a few minutes. But that day, the day before the dance had stopped for three days, she heard the door to the stairwell open, then close.

And then she heard Jaime’s voice.

“Cersei, please stop calling me.”

_Cersei. That’s his sister’s name, isn’t it?_ Brienne found herself holding her breath.

“I can’t go back, okay? No—I _won’t_. I don’t want to, not anymore. I don’t want to deal with you, or your husband, not at that office, not in that city. I’m tired of all of it. If Father wants to keep me working for the company, he’ll have to settle for me being here.”

_Oh, I really shouldn’t be hearing any of this_, she thought to herself in panic. But she had nowhere to go.

“Don’t say those things if you don’t mean them, Cersei.” Jaime was practically spitting into his phone now. “Don’t you _dare_ beg me for _anything._”

There was an intensity in Jaime’s voice, in the way he was speaking to his sister, that disturbed Brienne. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was… _strange_.

Then, of course, she had to go and do the phenomenally stupid thing of _dropping her phone_.

The sound echoed in the stairwell. Jaime fell silent.

It wasn’t like Brienne had anywhere to hide, after that. She picked up her phone—her hands had been trembling, she remembers—and walked slowly down the stairs.

Jaime didn’t say anything, when he saw her. He just stared.

“I’m sorry. I was—I didn’t mean to.” They were meaningless words, and she winced as she said them. But he still didn’t respond. So she slipped by him, and walked back to her desk.

The next day, Jaime didn’t come to her cubicle. Brienne took it as a sign that the dance was over, and she didn’t walk by his office again. It hurt, for some reason, which made her feel silly. But she was glad the dance hadn’t gone much further than that. It would have hurt more.

Three days after that, however, it just—resumed. Jaime walked by her cubicle, greeted her, just like it had been three days before. As if nothing had changed. As if she hadn’t eavesdropped on his conversation in the stairwell.

Brienne was mystified by the whole thing. But all she really had with Jaime was that first name basis, when it came down to it. It’s not like she could just ask him what had happened. And now it’s been a week since they started up again, and she’s walking by his office, holding a file tight to her chest, ignoring the pointed look his assistant is directing her way.

Then, Jaime introduces a new step in the dance.

He’s waving her into his office.

So she introduces a new step, too.

She pushes the glass door open.

“Brienne,” he says, just like he does when he walks by her cubicle.

“Jaime,” she responds. She can’t decide if she wants him to acknowledge the stairwell incident at all.

“You said I could ask you if I had anything I needed, didn’t you?” Jaime is leaning back in his chair, with a kind of practiced languidness, though he’s fiddling with a pen at the same time.

“Yes, of course.” Brienne is now very concerned about the direction this conversation is heading.

“You’re from around here, right? The Stormlands?”

_Okay. I guess we’re not acknowledging the stairwell incident._

“Y-yes. Yes I am,” she manages to say. “Well, from the island of Tarth, actually, off the coast.” _Of course it’s off the coast, you idiot, it’s an island._ “Hence the last name.”

“Ah. But you’re familiar with the region.”

“I grew up on the island, but went to high school on the mainland, yes. And university.”

“Do you think you could show me around sometime?”

Brienne almost drops the file she’s hugging in her arms.

“What?”

“I’m planning on being here for a while, as you know.” _As you know from the one-sided conversation you overheard in the stairwell._ “Haven’t done much sightseeing so far. If you don’t mind playing tour guide, I could use one.”

Brienne is currently very confused, so she responds in the only possible way she knows how: “Oh. O-okay. Sure.”

“Okay. Good,” Jaime says. Her brain feels like it’s on fire right now, but if she’s reading him right, Jaime actually looks _reassured_ that she agreed. “How’s this weekend? Or we can find some other time, if you have plans already.”

“I have no plans,” she answers, a bit too quickly. _Great, now he thinks I don’t have a social life. _She had answered so quickly, in fact, because she had wanted to get out of lunch with Margaery, whom she knew would spend the entire meal interrogating her about Jaime.

Obviously she wouldn’t tell Margaery _why_ she had to cancel.

“Okay. I can… email you?” Jaime cocks his head expectantly, like he’s waiting for her to suggest a more convenient means of communication.

“Oh! Um. Texting is probably easier. I’ll give you my number.” She can feel herself blushing as she says those words, which is a step she had very much _not_ planned to introduce into the dance.

Brienne almost suggests typing her number straight into his phone, but thinks perhaps Jaime’s phone might still be a sensitive subject for them both. So she walks towards his desk, tears off a page from his notepad, and writes down her number.

“Here. Text me whenever,” she says, holding out the paper.

“I will. Thank you.”

When she’s almost back at her cubicle, she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket. She puts the file that she’s been clutching down on her desk—it was just a prop, really, for the dance; it’s filled with paperwork from a project that concluded more than a year ago. She takes her phone out of her pocket and looks at the screen.

**It’s Jaime**, the notification says. Just those two words.


	3. A woman takes a man sightseeing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who followed the original ficlets, I edited Jaime's dialogue in this one to better explain why Cersei married Rhaegar and the implications of that. At this point I don't expect it to play a huge role down the road, but at least it feels a lot less like “oh crap it doesn't make sense for Cersei to be with Robert if Brienne is friends with Renly but doesn't know anything about Jaime, let me just pick some other random person to be Cersei's husband”.

_This is a mistake_, Brienne thinks for the hundredth time since she woke up this morning, as she waits for Jaime at the ferry terminal. Why the hells is she bringing him to Tarth? It’s too soon. She still has no clue what exactly is happening between them that would make this too soon, but she just knows it’s _too soon_.

Fine, so it’s the fourth straight weekend she’s been showing him around the Stormlands. She’d started off with Storm’s End, of course. Brienne isn’t that much of an expert on the castle’s history, beyond what they had to learn in high school, but Renly is a distant descendant of House Baratheon—not that the Great Houses still existed, or held castles—and he had told her a few good stories that had been passed down through generations.

“You’re close to Renly, then,” Jaime had commented, when she told him about her source.

“Oh, I guess so. He’s the first person that spoke to me, my first day on the job. But we’re just friends.” And then she had winced, because why did that last part even matter?

Jaime just smiled at her appreciatively, like it actually _did_ matter. “Good to know,” he had said. Again with that phrase. But he didn’t say much else after that on the subject.

That first weekend, she found that Jaime was talkative, even funny, when he wasn’t just greeting her with her name at her cubicle. But he was also talkative in a way that seemed as if he was trying to _avoid_ having to talk. _Really_ talk. Not that Brienne expected them to _really_ talk this first weekend, even if they had been doing that dance in the office for weeks. In real terms, she was still just his employee.

There were a handful of other great castles left standing around the Stormlands that were all worth visiting, but for the second weekend Brienne had thought it was best to shift gears. She picked a charming small town about an hour’s train ride out of the city, thinking it would be a nice place to spend the day. And it was, mostly, but when they found themselves walking through a farmers’ market, it had suddenly felt far too—too _domestic_. It was just the second weekend of sightseeing, Gods, not even a second_ date_. They hadn’t even had a _first_ date. Storm’s End didn’t count if there was no written or verbal agreement between both parties on its date-ness. Nothing had even changed, in the office. The dance continued, that was all. Okay, so they were texting more often, and Brienne was extremely glad that she sat with her back to Margaery. That woman had an eagle eye for people who smiled at their phones too much. But nothing had _changed_, had it?

Brienne might have brisk walked through the stalls a little too quickly as she thought these thoughts, her legs driven by some necessity to—she supposed the best word for it was _escape_. Escaping a _farmers’ market_, of all places; it seemed completely ridiculous, but it was true all the same. Jaime was in no such hurry, though, and seemed keen to indulge some kind of latent obsession he had with sampling cheese. At least, she had assumed it was just about _sampling_ cheese. By the time he had reached her at the end of the market, he was carrying six different blocks of cheese in his arms.

The third weekend, Brienne thought she should pick something safe. Safe and undomestic. They could go to the art museum. Art museums are safe. Art museums are educational. Art museums are sometimes even puzzling, but they had interesting objects in them, and they’d be spending all their time looking at those interesting objects, and reading words that described those interesting objects.

Except it just so happened that Jaime quite likes art, and quite likes _talking_ about art, in a way that Brienne found refreshing. He could speak reverently about sculptures she thought were quite confusing, and even, frankly, hideous. But he also had no qualms about making fun of serious old paintings, especially the ones with more anatomically questionable depictions of the Seven.

Art museums are not safe, Brienne decided. Jaime was _opening her mind_ and _making her laugh_ and Brienne was starting to really _feel things_ inside her. They weren’t even on a _date_. There was no written or verbal agreement between both parties.

Then, at the end of that afternoon, Jaime had asked her if they could do something different next weekend, experience more of the region’s unspoiled nature, maybe. “Oh, let’s go to Tarth!” she had said, without even thinking. “If the water’s calm enough next Saturday, we can take the first ferry out in the morning, and the last ferry back at night. It’ll be a long day, but doable, I think.”

“Your father still lives on Tarth, doesn’t he?” was Jaime’s first question, and Brienne could feel herself progress to a full-blown blush in what must have been record time. She hadn’t really thought about that—Jaime said ‘nature’ and she just immediately thought ‘Tarth’—but there was something in Jaime’s voice that told her he was amused at her suggestion.

“... He does,” she replied, tentatively. “But he’s busy next weekend,” she continued, though she knew he wasn’t. “And I just saw him last month,” she followed, though she sees him almost every month and was due for another visit. And then she ended with, “We don’t have to see him,” which was obviously true, but of course she had said it anyway, because why not just make everything weirder than it has to be?

“Of course,” Jaime said, and he wasn’t just _sounding_ amused then, he was also _looking_ amused. “I was just asking. I’d love to go to Tarth.”

And so they are going to Tarth. Jaime shows up at the ferry terminal just a few minutes past their agreed time. It’s a clear day in the Stormlands, rare even for this time of year, so they sit on the upper deck of the ferry, and can’t speak much above the strong winds of Shipbreaker Bay. Brienne tries her hardest not to formulate any opinions on how the wind is having its way with Jaime’s white linen shirt, although he seems to have forgotten that those first three buttons aren’t just for decoration. He’s rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, and she tries her hardest not to formulate any opinions on his forearms, either.

As they disembark the ferry, they walk past a signboard that says, grandly, **WELCOME TO TARTH**, and in cursive script below, _The Sapphire Isle_. Jaime points at it and remarks, “They’ve been calling it that for centuries, haven’t they?”

“Yeah. Maybe even for millennia. It’s for the blue of its waters.”

“It’s not a reference to the eyes, then.”

Brienne looks at him quizzically. “What eyes?”

“Your eyes.” He lifts a finger pointlessly in the direction of her face. “The Tarth eyes. I assume it’s a family trait. They’re very blue.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you?” Why did she _thank _him? He was just stating a fact. She _does_ have very blue eyes, and they _are_ a Tarth trait. It’s the one trait she’s always been glad she inherited.

“You’re welcome,” Jaime says, anyway, with that half-smile of his.

They spend the rest of the day on the western coast, mostly, where the ruins of Evenfall Hall still stand. The island isn’t particularly big, and it’s easy enough to take the bus along the main roads, and explore the island from there. Her childhood home, where her father still lives, is on the eastern coast, so she can sidestep the intimacy of showing Jaime that part of her life. Her father _did _turn out to be busy this weekend, anyway, so she doesn’t have to feel so guilty about coming to the island without telling him.

In the late afternoon, Brienne brings Jaime to a secluded meadow in the northwest. It’s close enough to the sea, and they’ll be able to watch the sunset in an hour or so, too. She used to go there as a kid, she tells Jaime, when she wanted to be alone. She doesn’t tell him that it was to get away from the cruelty of the other kids.

They lie in the grass, and look up at the sky. There is an intimacy in this, though it’s not the same intimacy of him seeing her childhood home, of meeting her father. Brienne pushes away the thought that this—bringing him to _her_ meadow—might be even more intimate than those things.

“Listen, Jaime,” she tells him. It’s what she used to do when she came here as a child. Just close her eyes and listen to everything except her own thoughts.

He does, for a while. “It’s nice,” he says eventually. “It’s quiet.”

_Well, those are certainly adjectives._ She shouldn’t have expected more from a man who spent most of his life in the city of King’s Landing, with all the noises of the urban environment that people there must learn to ignore. “No, _really_ listen,” Brienne urges. “Close your eyes and listen.”

Jaime stays silent for a long time. Finally, he speaks again. “There’s the grass, rustling in the wind. Birds, talking to each other in the trees back there. The waves, that’s distant, but I can hear it, I think. And your breathing.” Brienne’s eyes fly open at the last one, but Jaime just continues. “No traffic. No fingers typing away on keyboards, or pens scratching on paper, or the whirring of copy machines. And coffee machines, I suppose.” She hears the smile in his voice, at that little rhyme.

Then— “No arguments.” The smile disappears, quick as it came. “No expectations.”

Brienne turns over to lie on her side, facing him. She folds her arms and pillows her head on her hands. Somehow, those words have given her the courage to ask the question that’s been on her mind since the stairwell incident. And she’s going to hope he talks. _Really_ talks. She wants him to talk to her. She wants to listen.

“You were supposed to go back to King’s Landing, weren’t you?” she says, her eyes tracing the edges of his profile. “Why did you decide to stay?”

“Long story.” He takes in the sky, takes a moment with it, as if to decide just how much of that long story Brienne really needs to hear. “I—my family—it’s complicated. My father wants me to take over the company, someday, even though my sister is more suited to it in some ways, and my brother is definitely a better fit than us both.”

“Tyrion, right?” Nicknamed the Imp, if Brienne remembers correctly, as much for his quick wit as for his stature.

Jaime just nods. “My sister isn’t too happy about my father’s intentions for me, not that she wants my brother in the running at all. Just her and her _new husband_.” There’s a bitterness to Jaime’s words, and Brienne is reminded of that strange intensity she overheard in his phone call with Cersei. “She was pushing me for it, at first. She’s my twin, you know, and we used to do everything together. She thought that she’d be able to gain control through me, if my father won’t give it to her.”

He turns toward her now, pillows his head with his hands just like she’s doing. “I don’t want any of it, Brienne. I’m good at my job—I don’t enjoy it, but I’m good at it, I was _raised_ for it. And I’m not sure what else I could do, anyway. But I… I don’t want control of the _entire company_.” He picks at the grass between them. “Cersei finally got that in her head. So she went and found someone with more ambition, or at least who’d be better positioned to—satisfy her needs. She married Rhaegar Targaryen, I’m sure you’re aware. I guess you could say he’s the ‘me’ of the Targaryen Group. Thought she could—I don’t know—put them on track to maybe merge the two companies eventually. Control even more than she would get if she were me.” He rolls onto his back again. “Anyway. My father doesn’t want a merger, doesn’t want her husband to inherit the business. He just thinks I’ll come around eventually. His _golden son_.”

Jaime sighs heavily, and Brienne is struck by the thought that he seems to be somewhere quite far away from this meadow. “Everything is just—_simmering_, back in King’s Landing. Everyone wants a completely different outcome, and they’re all convinced that what they want is what will happen. I don’t even know how long I can stay in the Stormlands, before my father finds a way to force me back.”

He lies there for a while, lost somewhere among the clouds. Then, all of a sudden, he sits up. “I’m sorry,” he says, without looking back at her. “You probably didn’t want to hear all of that.”

Brienne shifts herself so she’s sitting beside him. “Jaime, I—I don’t know if I can give you any advice at all. This is all—it’s far beyond anything I’ve experienced in my own life. But I’m happy to listen, whenever you need to talk.” She nudges him with her elbow. “I’m not just a tour guide, you know.”

He smiles that half-smile again in response. “Hey,” he nudges back. “Can I ask you a question, too?”

“Of course.”

“How did that whole thing get started? About you thinking I look average?”

_Not this again._ “Why are you so obsessed with that?” Brienne laughs.

“I’m just interested in the backstory, that’s all.” Jaime’s whole demeanour seems to be morphing before her very eyes. Brienne can see the familiar self-confidence return, a bit of that arrogance he saves for the office, though she’s realising now that it might just be something for him to hide behind. “I was surprised to hear it.” He straightens his shoulders, lifts his chin a little higher. “I happen to think I’m quite good-looking.”

Okay, she was feeling quite sorry for him a minute ago, but now she can’t help but roll her eyes. “Who _are_ you? Who even says that about themselves?”

“Answer the question, Brienne,” he grins.

“Everyone was talking about it, okay?” she groans. “Your looks. All day, every day. It was too much. I was just really annoyed one morning, because of…” She doesn’t really want to get into the details of that morning, actually. “Bottom line, I just didn’t want to hear it anymore. So I said it to shut people up. Then it got out of hand.”

“Because of…?” he probes.

_Alright, fine._ “I don’t have a _chauffeur_ to get me to work, Jaime. I don’t even have a car. I take a bus, then a train, then the shuttle. I missed all three of those that morning. And then I was all sweaty and gross and I passed you in the hallway and you gave me a look—”

_Oh fuck. _Brienne had said too much. She hadn’t wanted to talk about the _look_.

“Oh.” There’s a glimmer of recognition in Jaime’s eye. “I remember that.”

_He does?_ “You do?”

“Yeah. I think so. You were all flustered, I remember, and your hair was a mess.”

_Oh great, _that’s_ why he remembers. _“Thanks a _lot_ for that.” Brienne hides her head in her knees. “I don’t really need the recap, Jaime.”

“Don’t interrupt while I’m reminiscing, _Bridget_,” he teases. “I remember it because it was the first time I thought, ‘She has nice eyes.’”

Brienne just starts laughing into her knees out of shock.

“I’m serious!” Jaime insists.

“_That_ was your takeaway?” She lifts her head. “I looked like a _disaster_, Jaime. I distinctly remember going to the bathroom right after and thinking that I looked like a _disaster_.”

“As I recall, you were wearing your blue blouse. The one that goes best with your eyes, which were just—they were so _wide_. And your cheeks were all flushed and it just, I don’t know, made your eyes stand out even more. I guess that’s why I gave you a _look_.”

_He can’t possibly mean what he’s saying._ “You _basically_ said I was ugly at the office party, Jaime,” Brienne reminds him. Or perhaps it’s more of a reminder to herself.

Jaime holds both his hands up in surrender. “Again, I’m very sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” she says, lightly, and nudges him again. “I punched you already.”

“I was drunk, anyway, not that it’s an excuse.” He lies back down on the grass. “Pissed off about my family as usual. And, I think, a little hurt when I overheard that the tall one with the nice blue eyes thought I only looked _average_.”

There’s something in those words, in the way Jaime _says_ those words, that makes Brienne want to fly into a panic. Even after all the dancing, even after the past four weekends. No, she can’t—he can’t—she refuses to jump to any conclusions. It’s a much better option for her to just—stand up abruptly.

“Where are you going?” Jaime asks from the grass. “Can’t we stay here a while longer?”

Brienne looks at the sky, and sees the sun making its way towards the horizon. She thanks it silently for giving her a reason to walk away from this place, this small patch of meadow where Jaime’s spilled one too many truths for today. She doesn’t want to think of them as truths, really. Not that last part. Not yet.

“Get up, Jaime,” and she offers him her hand. “Or we’re going to miss the sunset.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: when I wrote the whole part about Jaime meeting Brienne in the hallway, I thought about Darcy's reaction to Elizabeth after she walked all the way to Netherfield.
> 
> _“I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”_
> 
> _“Not at all," he replied; "they were brightened by the exercise.”_
> 
> Oh, and I suppose I should point out that I am on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/), for those who don't already know!


	4. A woman has a talk with her friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I forgot to mention last chapter: I guess it goes without saying that there was no Aerys situation, or if there was, it wasn’t catastrophic enough to have Jaime gain canon-level notoriety, or to prevent Cersei from marrying Rhaegar. Listen, I did not intend one humble ficlet to grow into _this_, so you're just going to have to bear with the plot-less-ness of it all.
> 
> Anyway, I use emojis sparingly in this chapter and the next, just to let you know if you happen to be reading this on a platform that doesn’t show them for whatever reason!

**Hey. Just found out a client is in town this weekend, so I’ll have to work on Sat. Are you free Sun?**

Brienne’s phone lit up with this message five minutes ago. And for the past five minutes, she has been staring at that same notification. She hasn’t opened the message—doesn’t want Jaime to see that she’s seen it. She isn’t free on Sunday, in fact; she’s cancelled on Margaery twice already, and she’s feeling guilty enough about it as it is. She’s also running out of excuses, considering she doesn’t exactly have many friends or commitments outside of work, and Margaery is well aware of that. Although Brienne has a feeling that if Margaery knew the real reason behind those cancellations, she would gladly revoke any and all appointments for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, Margaery’s coming over to her apartment to hang out on Sunday afternoon, and that’s that. She isn’t going to change her plans for Jaime, not this weekend. Something in Brienne tells her she _should_ be feeling disappointed. She enjoys spending time with him, doesn’t she? Every text from him makes her feel much more joy than a few words in a digital bubble truly has a right to make her feel. But she finds that what this particular message makes her feel is something akin to—

_relief_.

And now, in addition to feeling guilty about cancelling on Margaery—which she will be rectifying by _not_ cancelling on Margaery—she is feeling guilty about feeling relieved about not meeting Jaime, though meeting Jaime generally makes her feel happy, beneath all her nervousness.

It’s all very confusing.

Last weekend, Jaime had told her about his family. He had told her that he thinks she has nice blue eyes. He had told her that he felt hurt when he thought she didn’t think he was much to look at. He had told her that he was listening to the sound of her breathing as they lay side-by-side in her favourite meadow. And perhaps most crucially, he had told her all these things while he was wearing a white linen shirt with the top three buttons left unbuttoned, and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose his forearms.

It was all so… _much. _Other women—women Jaime has probably dated before—they might have felt flattered. They might have seized those opportunities, if Brienne was even right in thinking they were opportunities. They might not have stood up abruptly from an intimate conversation and thanked the sun for setting just in time. They might have _kissed _him, right there on the grass. Brienne had thought about that. She really had. Part of her really did want to kiss him, right there on the grass. Part of her wants to walk into his office right now and do that very thing.

Yet the idea of kissing him—it doesn’t make her feel happy, or excited, or passionate, or all these things she thinks she’s supposed to feel. And it isn’t about whether it would be her first, though it would. She’s twenty-five, never kissed anyone or been kissed by anyone, but she’s quite gotten over that already, frankly. It’s just a fact of her existence.

It’s just, the idea of kissing _Jaime_. Something about that just feels so—monumental. Like everything in her life would change if she just does that one thing, with this one person. It already feels like everything in her life is changing, just because she had _punched him in the face_. To _kiss_ him—Jaime—it’s—Gods—it’s _overwhelming_.

So Brienne doesn’t want to change her plans. She doesn’t want to see Jaime this weekend. She wants, for some reason, to talk to Margaery. To tell Margaery everything that’s happened so far. She knows it’s going to be trying—Margaery is… well, excitable is one word for it. Perhaps Margaery will feel all the excitement Brienne is _supposed_ to be feeling, but can’t seem to. Regardless, Brienne just wants to get out of her own head. She’s been trapped in her own head about this for far too long.

(There is, of course, the option of just _talking_ to Jaime. But she’s not ready for that quite yet.)

She taps on the notification, finally, and replies: **I’m meeting Margaery on Sunday. Sorry 😕**

Slanted mouth face is good, right? It’s not as revealing as a sad face, but enough to convey at least some disappointment.

Jaime’s reply comes soon enough:** Next weekend then 😔**

Great. Sad face. And it’s the most pathetic-looking of all the sad face options save the ones with actual tears. Now she’s feeling guilty again. But Brienne has made her choice, so she pushes that away, and concentrates on the relief.

(Later, when Jaime walks by her cubicle, he gives her a sad smile. There’s no emoji for that. She wants to bang her head on the table.)

Saturday rolls around, and for the first time in five Saturdays, Brienne isn’t spending the day with Jaime. He’s not even texting her—probably busy with the client, she supposes. By the end of the day, she’s not sure if she feels relief anymore. She was just at the gym in the morning, but she heads there again. She wants to sweat out some of that regret.

(After her second workout of the day, she looks at her reflection. Eyes wide, cheeks flushed to make the blue stand out, Jaime had said. She wants to bang her head on the mirror.)

Sunday morning, at least, could be spent grocery shopping and preparing lunch for herself and Margaery. By some miracle, she manages to keep it all together through their meal, pretend everything is as it always is. Pretend her life doesn’t have Jaime in it. Brienne stands in her kitchen after, silently watching Margaery make a pot of tea, trying her hardest to figure out how to start this conversation. When Margaery pours her a cup and hands it to her, she almost drops it, as if she’d forgotten how to use her fingers.

“What’s going on with you?” Margaery asks. “You’ve been acting weird through the whole of lunch. Well, for weeks, actually.”

_Okay, guess I wasn’t really keeping it all together._

“Marg,” Brienne begins, “I need to tell you something.” She motions Margaery towards her couch. “You might want to sit down for this.” I _might want to sit down for this._

“Oh. My. Gods. Brienne.” Margaery somehow manages to bounce over without spilling her cup of tea. “Are you finally going to tell me about your sordid affair with Jaime Lannister? I want to know _all_ the details, _please._ Sexual positions, everything.”

_Seven hells_. Brienne knew this was going to happen. She really needs more friends. “There is no—there isn’t a _sordid affair_. There are definitely no _sexual positions_.”

Margaery can’t seem to decide if she wants to look disappointed or disbelieving. “What’s with the whole back-and-forth in the office then? And the texting?”

Brienne almost drops her cup again. Perhaps it’s safest to put it on the coffee table. “How do you know about the _texting_?”

“Aha! So you _have_ been texting Jaime Lannister.” She gives Brienne her smug look, as if she doesn’t permanently have one plastered on her face anyway. “I didn’t know for sure, but now I do.”

“Damn it, Marg,” Brienne sighs. “If you want me to tell you anything, you have to promise to keep it a secret. And you know how you are with secrets.”

“Secrets?” she repeats, all false innocence, setting her own cup down carefully. “I _love_ secrets.”

“You love _hearing_ secrets, Margaery. You love _telling_ those secrets to other people. I’m asking you to _keep_ a secret right now.”

“Fine,” Margaery rolls her eyes. “I’ll try my best.”

Brienne supposes that Margaery’s ‘best’ will have to do. She takes a deep breath, squeezes her eyes shut, and plugs her fingers in her ears, just to prepare herself for Margaery’s reaction.

“IhavebeengoingoutwithJaimeforthepastfourweekends,” she blurts out. When she doesn’t hear anything, she cracks open one eye.

_I’m sorry? _Brienne sees Margaery mouth at her, and she takes one finger out of one ear. “Could you repeat that _slowly_, Brienne?” Margaery says.

Brienne plugs her finger back into her ear, and enunciates slowly: “I. Have. Been. Going. Out. With. Jaime. For. The. Past. Four. Weekends.”

And then, as expected, Margaery shrieks.

When she’s gotten that out of her system, she plants her two hands on Brienne’s cheeks. “What the _fuck_. You _are_ having a sordid affair! Good for you, Brienne!”

“Again, there is _no sordid affair_,” she manages to say, despite Margaery squishing her face together. She grabs Margaery’s wrists and pushes her hands away from her face. “I mean ‘going out’ in the most basic sense. We go… out. They’re not _dates_. He asked me to show him around the Stormlands a few weeks ago.”

“He asked you _personally_? And you’ve been doing this for _four weekends straight_?” Margaery has that half-disappointed, half-disbelieving look again. “How could they _not_ be dates? What have you been _doing_ exactly?”

“Well, the first weekend, we went to Storm’s End.”

Margaery narrows her eyes in contemplation. “Okay, not my first choice for a date, but I guess an old castle _can _be romantic.”

“I didn’t _mean_ for it to be romantic,” Brienne groans. “It’s _the_ castle of the Stormlands, Marg. The city we live in was literally built in its shadow. It’s the first stop on the list for any tourist.”

Margaery just shrugs. “I just ignore it, most days. How about the next weekend?”

“We drove out to Bronzegate—”

“Not _another _castle!” Margaery interrupts. “Unless of course Jaime _loves_ castles. Then bring him to _every_ castle.”

The way Margaery said that last bit seemed to suggest they should be doing much more at castles than just wandering around listening to the audio guide included in the admission price, but Brienne valiantly ignores that implication. “We didn’t go to the castle. We just went to one of the small towns _near_ Bronzegate.”

“What did you even _do_?”

“Um. He bought a lot of cheese at the farmers’ market?”

“... Okay. Maybe let’s move on to the third weekend.”

“Art museum.”

“Ooh, very sexy. Lots of naked bodies.” Margaery’s eyes seem almost to glaze over as she says, “I bet you Jaime Lannister’s built like some of those sculptures underneath that well-tailored suit.”

“Seven hells, Marg.” Brienne shoves the image of Jaime in his half-unbuttoned white shirt out of her mind yet again. “We actually spent more time with the modern and contemporary art. Less naked bodies, more… shapes. Everyday objects.”

“Hmm. Boring.”

“They’re really interesting, actually, Jaime’s very good at talking about—”

Brienne stops herself there as a sly smile forms on Margaery’s face. “Ooh, Jaime’s very good, is he?”

“Will you stop reading or inserting innuendos into everything, please?”

Margaery puts a hand to her chest in mock offence. “As my friend, Brienne, you shouldn’t be asking me to go against my nature. How about the fourth weekend then?”

Brienne takes another deep breath. “Don’t freak out, but… I brought him to Tarth.”

“_You brought him to Tarth?”_ Margaery practically shrieks. Again.

“I just _told_ you not to freak out. It wasn’t a big deal.” _It was a big deal._ “He wanted to see some nature and that was my first thought!”

“Brienne, you brought him to _your_ island.” Great, Margaery’s hands are squishing her cheeks together again.

“You say that like my family still owns the island,” Brienne reminds her, as she pushes her hands away, “which we haven’t in maybe five centuries, Marg.”

“I _mean_, Brienne, you grew up there. You love that place. It’s like you’re giving him a part of your _soul_.” _Well, that’s a bit dramatic, but at least she moved on from the sexual positions._ “Oh my gods, your _father_ lives on Tarth,” Margaery gasps. “Did you bring Jaime to _meet your dad_?”

“Of course not,” Brienne says, exasperatedly. “Why would I bring my boss to meet my dad?!”

“At this point, Brienne, I think calling him your boss is a _tiny_ bit inaccurate, don’t you think?”

“What should I call him, then?”

Margaery pauses to think for a moment. “Your… man friend.”

“My _man friend_?” Brienne’s brow could not be more furrowed. “What the hells is that?”

“He has to be _at least_ a friend by now, even if he’s not a _boy_friend. And he’s one of the gold standards of the male specimen.” Margaery looks like she’s salivating, Maiden save her.

“Gross,” Brienne replies, even as she curses her brain for bringing back the image of Jaime in the white shirt for the ninety-second time today.

“Please tell me you brought him to your favourite meadow and kissed him passionately,” Margaery pleads.

“I brought him to my favourite meadow—” Margaery’s eyes are wide with anticipation— “and _didn’t_ kiss him passionately.”

Her face falls. “Well, what did you do, then?”

“We talked. Well, _he_ talked. About personal stuff.” Brienne suspects Margaery probably knows much more than she does about Lannister Corp power struggles, seeing as she’s worked in the main office at King’s Landing before, but she definitely doesn’t want to betray Jaime’s confidence. “And then he asked me about the thing I said,” Brienne mumbles.

“What thing?”

“You know. About how I thought he looks average. Which I don’t, obviously.” She was born with eyes.

“I knew you were lying about that. Wait, you’re telling me he actually cares?”

“... He might have told me that it _hurt_ him.”

“Why?” Margaery seems as confused as Brienne was. Or still is. “That is a man who knows _exactly_ how good-looking he is.”

Brienne covers her face with her hands. She’s been going over Jaime’s exact words in her mind ever since he said them. “He didn’t exactly say_ why_. He just said, ‘I was a little hurt when I overheard that the tall one with the nice blue eyes thought I only looked _average_.’ That’s—that’s weird, right?”

And then there’s just silence. Brienne separates her fingers slowly, to see Margaery looking at her with a strange expression on her face.

“Brienne, I want you to think really hard right now about anything else he’s said that might have seemed _weird_ to you.”

She wants to tell herself that she has to rummage through her memory for these examples, but the fact is she’s already far too prepared. “It wasn’t the first time he’s asked me about that whole thing, actually. He asked me after the meeting with HR, if I really thought he looked average. And I said no, and then he said ‘Good to know.’”

Margaery is nodding her head vigorously right now, and it’s very unsettling. “What else?”

“And then, I may have stupidly said something like, ‘Renly’s just a friend’, and he _also _said, ‘Good to know.’”

Margaery is letting out a bizarre high-pitched hum. “What else?”

“The thing about my eyes being blue. It was probably the fifth time that day that he mentioned that. He just kept… slipping it into conversation. We talked about how Tarth is known as the Sapphire Isle, and he asked if it was because of my eyes.”

Margaery claps her hands around Brienne’s shoulders. When she does this, it somehow always makes Brienne overly conscious of how broad her frame is, but now it’s far more disconcerting because Margaery is giving her the most direct stare in the history of direct stares.

“So what did you do with Jaime Lannister this weekend, Brienne?”

“... N-nothing,” Brienne stammers. “I—I didn’t meet him.”

“Why the hells not?!”

Gods, Brienne forgets sometimes that Margaery can be really scary when she wants to be. She shrugs her shoulders out of Margaery’s grip. “He had to work yesterday! And you were planning on coming over today.”

“I would have _gladly_ not come here if I had known _any_ of this.”

“I know, okay? But I was—I needed some space. From Jaime.” Brienne grabs a cushion from her couch and buries her face in it.

“For Gods’ sakes, why? He _likes_ you, Brienne. I’m sure he does.”

“I like him too.” Brienne has to say it into the cushion, because she feels like she might start crying if she hears those words said out loud from her own mouth. She brings the cushion down to her chest and hugs it tightly. “It’s just… so many _feelings_.” She doesn’t know how to articulate it to Margaery in any other way. “And I’m worried that—what if it’s all just some big joke?” She’s been the butt of a joke before, a cruel one, though she’s never told Margaery all the details. “What if I’m just—something to help him pass the time until he has to go back to King’s Landing?”

“I don’t think it’s a _joke_, Brienne,” Margaery says, gently. “He wouldn’t have spent four weekends with you if it was all a _joke_. And even if that last part were true, you’re enjoying that spending all that time with him, aren’t you?”

Brienne nods.

“Won’t you allow yourself some happiness, Brienne? No matter how long it lasts?”

And then she _has_ to bury her face in the cushion again, because she _is_ going to cry.

Brienne had learned, long ago, how not to cry in the face of cruelty. She had learned it by walling herself away—from everything, even from things and people that were _not_ cruel. She may have even learned it by inflicting cruelty on herself first, before others could do it to her.

But kindness—the kindness Margaery has shown her with just a few words, the kindness Margaery is asking her to show _herself_—that is another matter altogether.

Their tea has gone cold, by then, and Margaery gets up to make them another pot while Brienne calms down. Brienne doesn’t want to talk about Jaime anymore after that, not for the rest of the afternoon. They watch a movie instead, something funny and distinctly unromantic. Brienne thinks of Jaime anyway.

Margaery finally leaves around five, but not before giving Brienne a big hug, and suggesting to her yet again that she might want to get around to starting that sordid affair, _with_ sexual positions involved. Brienne resists the temptation of denial; just blushes and laughs, this time.

When she’s back on her couch, Brienne checks her phone for the first time since Margaery arrived. Jaime hasn’t said much, but he’s sent her some photos from their trip to Tarth. He’s been sending them to her all week. There’s one in this batch, though, with her standing in the grass, in the distance, blue sky all around her. She doesn’t know what it is about this image, but she finds she doesn’t feel that discomfort she usually feels when she looks at photos of herself.

**Hey, **Brienne types, before she can ruin it by thinking too hard about it.** I know this is really last minute. But are you free for dinner tonight? **

She looks at the message for a while, considers adding some comment about it being their sightseeing for this weekend. But she decides against it. She won’t frame it that way. She wants to have dinner with him. Just dinner. If he interprets it as a date, then he does.

Brienne turns the screen off immediately after sending it. She wants to put her phone down, walk away from it to make herself another cup of tea, just so she doesn’t sit there just waiting for his reply.

But before she can even move, her phone screen lights back up again.

**Definitely. Pick you up at 7? Let me know where 😊**


	5. A man has a talk with his brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's Jaime's POV for the very first time.

**Hello, dear brother. Father is dispatching me to the Stormlands this weekend to ‘talk some sense into you’. The old bastard won’t even let me go on a work day. Fancy spending the entirety of Saturday in my hotel bar for said talking of sense?**

Jaime reads Tyrion’s text and sighs. Actually, he sighed as soon as he saw Tyrion’s name pop up on his phone screen, _before_ he even read the text.

He knows he should be happy to see his brother—and he _is_ looking forward to seeing him again—but it’s a reminder of all the things left unresolved back in King’s Landing. A reminder of how he’s living in a bubble fit to burst, here in the Stormlands.

And there’s also the small matter of how he’s supposed to meet Brienne on Saturday, too.

If he asks Tyrion if he’s free on Sunday instead, his brother will definitely start asking too many questions. Questions that Jaime doesn’t want to answer, not over text. He won’t be able to say that he has a work thing, because Tyrion will just say that technically they _will_ be meeting for work, since they will purportedly be having a conversation about the future of Lannister Corp. And he won’t be able to say that he’s meeting a friend, because as far as his brother knows, he doesn’t have any friends here in the Stormlands. He doesn’t even have any friends back in the capital besides Addam.

(In any case, it’s not like he’d want Brienne to be characterised as just a ‘friend’, even in an evasive text to his brother. He is quite sure by now, after the past four Saturdays, that he would like her to be more than that.)

As Jaime contemplates the likelihood of Tyrion buying the excuse that he’s signed up for a Saturday afternoon pottery class, another bubble of text pops up:

**And by ‘the entirety of Saturday’, I mean, from after lunch. I’m arriving Friday evening, but I have other activities planned in which you will likely not wish to partake, and I don’t expect to be awake till noon at the earliest.**

Of course he has other _activities_ planned. Jaime is just glad Tyrion has given up on asking him to join in on those activities.

**And by ‘said talking of sense’, I mean, not. Obviously.**

Not that Jaime expected anything else from his brother, but he finds himself feeling relieved nonetheless. **Sure, **he types, simply, **see you at 2 pm. The usual spot?**

**Nothing but the best hotel in the Stormlands for the Lannisters**, Tyrion replies.

Now, to text Brienne. Jaime considers telling her the truth—she knows the gist of what’s happening in King’s Landing, after all—but he’s been wondering for days if he said too much, back on Tarth. Not because he doesn’t want her to know, but because it’s just so… _much_. Even just the _gist_ of it. Even without having explained his relationship with his father, or Tyrion, or—hells—_Cersei_. As if any of those three relationships, the last one in particular, could be adequately described in mere words.

Brienne had said she’d be happy to listen. But she doesn’t have any clue what she’d have to listen _to_, if he really told her everything. He’d never had to explain the family to anyone outside the family before. Even Addam has had a front row seat to the Lannister family drama since they were children. Jaime had never been put in a position where he’d have to _explain_. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he’d been avoiding those positions his entire life. Now he finds himself actually _wanting_ to explain everything to Brienne, though he’d only spent four days with her, effectively. They still hardly interact in the office, besides all the times he’s contrived to walk by her cubicle. He has a drawer full of useless photocopies to show for it.

He thinks of how easy it is to be around Brienne, despite the nerves—hers _and_ his. He has an inkling that she might like him well enough. She laughs and rolls her nice blue eyes at him, and he may have caught her staring more than a few times, especially on Tarth, when he wore the White Shirt™. But he also thinks of how she stood up abruptly in the middle of the meadow, in what he thought was the middle of their conversation. _We’re going to miss the sunset_, she had said, though they had plenty of time.

It’s been days, and he still can’t figure out what had made her do that. It couldn’t have been the family stuff, could it? She hadn’t seemed perturbed when he told her. She’d only stood up when he told her he had felt hurt that she thought he looked average. What could possibly be so offensive about that?

Best to err on the side of caution, Jaime decides, and not tell her about Tyrion. He lies and says a client is in the Stormlands this weekend, and asks if she’s free on Sunday instead. It takes her longer than usual to reply, and he’s almost tempted to march over to her cubicle and just ask her in front of everyone. When her text comes through—**I’m meeting Margaery on Sunday. Sorry 😕**—he has a flare-up of that version of himself he thought he left in King’s Landing. Suddenly he feels quite inclined to fire Margaery Tyrell, though that wouldn’t change her plans for the weekend, he supposes.

Brienne only sent a slanted mouth face emoji, which seems to suggest that he should send a slanted mouth face emoji in return, but he sends her a sad face instead, the most pathetic one he can find. It’s an accurate description of how he’ll be feeling on the weekend, he expects.

On Saturday, Jaime walks into the hotel bar a little after two. He can’t see Tyrion on first glance, but he heads in the direction of the same booth they sat in the last time they were both in this bar. He expects his brother will already be there with two glasses of whiskey at the ready. Tyrion is unpredictable in many aspects, but in the aspect of hotel bars and whiskey, he’s a creature of habit.

True enough, as Jaime approaches the booth, he sees Tyrion sitting there, already halfway through his own drink.

“Tyrion,” Jaime acknowledges, as he slides into the seat.

“Ah, Jaime.” Tyrion raises his glass in greeting. “How’s life in self-imposed exile?

“Oh, don’t make it sound so dramatic,” Jaime replies, as he rotates his own glass on the table. “I’m not even that far away. I half expected Father to send Clegane to physically drag me back to King’s Landing.”

“Not a good look for the company, I’d expect.” Tyrion takes another sip of his whiskey. “Not-far-away as you are, Father has been even more curmudgeonly than usual since you essentially told him you’d prefer to spend the foreseeable future in one of our less important regional offices. How’s _that _going, by the way?”

Jaime exhales and lifts his glass to his lips. The liquid burns as it flows down his throat. “I thought you said we weren’t going to be doing any ‘talking of sense’.”

“I’m just interested in my big brother’s life, that’s all,” Tyrion says offhandedly. “I haven’t seen you in months.”

“Again, this office isn’t really all that far from King’s Landing. You could have come for a visit, even without Father’s command.”

Tyrion wrinkles his nose. “I find this region quite… what’s the right word for it. _Provincial_, I suppose. Too much sea, and grass, and wind, and so forth.”

“You still managed to partake in your _activities_, didn’t you?”

“There’s always something in every city,” Tyrion smirks. “But I’m still far too attached to King’s Landing, even though it has Father and Cersei in it. And our dear good-brother, now, who’s completely insufferable in his own Targaryen way.” He inches closer to Jaime. “By the way, I have my suspicions that he’s not being _entirely_ faithful—”

“Stop.” Jaime places his glass down on the table with a bit more force than he should have. “I don’t want to know anything that isn’t relevant to how the business should be run here.”

“You know as well as I do, Jaime, that everything that happens in our family affects the way our business is run.” Tyrion takes a sip, and tilts his head. “... Are you really not planning to come back?”

Jaime leans back in his seat, and addresses the light fixture above their table. “Not if I can help it. I don’t think it’s up to me, though, in the long term. Father will find a way, I expect.”

“Indeed.” Tyrion lifts his empty glass. “Another round?”

Jaime looks at the shallow pool of whiskey in his own glass, and nods his head. His brother signals to the bartender.

“I don’t know how you can stand it, Tyrion,” Jaime murmurs, as they wait for their drinks. Tyrion has endured far worse than Jaime from both his father and sister—for his physical appearance, yes, but maybe more so for having lived through his own birth, while their mother had passed.

“What can I say?” Tyrion says, with nonchalance. “I _love _drama.” And power, Jaime thinks, and strategy, and everything that comes with running a large corporation from its highest stratum. “And there are still many benefits to being a Lannister in King’s Landing. Benefits I intend to enjoy for as long as possible.” The bartender comes with two more glasses of whiskey, just then. “Anyway, who knows how things will go, with the company? I’m really quite happy to bide my time. Assuming you don’t have a change of heart, that is.”

Jaime chafes at that suggestion. “I highly doubt it. If I return to the head office, it will not be of my own volition.”

Tyrion suddenly seems to realise, or remember, the depth of Jaime’s distaste for this business they had all been born into, because the next words out his mouth are in a voice gentler than Jaime’s ever heard. “Brother—we could talk about it, you know?”

“Talk about… what?” Jaime vaguely recalls a time when they used to talk about everything, though Tyrion is some seven years younger. Then, things got so complicated. More complicated than they used to be, at least. It was all part of growing up, for a Lannister. What would they talk about now? _What for?_

“I don’t know,” Tyrion shrugs. “Anything. Why you chose to stay _here_, of all places.”

“Our _family_ isn’t reason enough?”

“Yes, sure, that’s why you’re not in the capital. But why _here_? Why the Stormlands? You could go off to Oldtown. Our office there is pretty much comparable in scale to King’s Landing. Or Lannisport, even. Father would be less annoyed by both of those, I’d think.”

“Since when do you care about how annoyed Father would be?” Jaime replies, and Tyrion tips his head in agreement. “Anyway,” he continues, “Oldtown doesn’t have—”

And then he stops. He didn’t mean to. He was thinking of her, at the back of his mind, and it just came out.

Tyrion is looking at him curiously. “Oldtown doesn’t have…?”

“Look.” Jaime is suddenly acutely aware of how every slight movement causes the leather seat to squeak beneath him. “You can’t tell anyone else about this.”

“My lips will be sealed now and forever,” Tyrion promises, drawing his index finger and thumb across his mouth.

“Okay,” Jaime sighs. “I’ve… met someone. I think.”

“A ‘someone’!” Tyrion clasps his palms together eagerly. “And this is a _dateable_ ‘someone’?”

“I _think_. I’m not entirely sure she’s open to it.”

“Still. A dateable ‘someone’ _not_ mandated by Cersei!” Tyrion lifts his glass as if in toast. “I never thought I’d see the day!”

“She would very much not be mandated by Cersei.” Jaime doesn’t want to think about how much control Cersei used to have over his life, even just six months ago. “She’d not even be _approved_ by Cersei.”

“Interesting, very interesting. Maybe that’s why you like her so much.”

Jaime looks at him coldly. “I’d thank you not to reduce it to that.”

“Calm down, brother, I’m only joking.” They both know he wasn’t. “What’s she like, then? Miss Someone of the Stormlands? What’s her name? How did you meet?”

“Her name is Brienne. She works for us. At the Stormlands office, I mean.”

“Ah, an _office_ romance.”

“I guess you could say that.” Jaime can feel the corners of his mouth curving upwards, just thinking of her. “She’s tall. Taller than me, even. Eyes bluer than you’ve ever seen. Blushes far too often for her own good, but it’s… charming. She’s quiet at first, but easy to talk to, once you get her to open up. She listens to me—I mean, she listens to me _talk_, not that she _obeys_ me, and it’s—it’s not just… it doesn’t feel like it’s because of our last name. She laughs at my stupid jokes, or tries her hardest not to.”

And then, Jaime remembers one crucial point he’s failed to mention. “Oh. And the first time we spoke… she punched me in the face.”

“She what?!” Tyrion is practically splayed across the table in anticipation of this story. How many whiskeys did he have before Jaime arrived? “Why the hells did she do that and why is she already the best person ever?”

“So I _may_ have gotten drunk at an office party,” Jaime winces. “And I _may_ have told her she was ugly.”

“Is she?”

“That’s—you’re _missing the point_. I shouldn’t have said that. It was cruel.”

Tyrion looks impressed. “Bra-vo, Jaime. You know what that is?” He lifts his glass—already empty again—in another toast. “_Personal. Growth. _The Stormlands must be rubbing off on you, though I don’t remember the people here being particularly known for their niceness.”

“Alright, calm down, brother. I’m not that much of an asshole.” He can feel its untruth as soon as the sentence is out of his mouth.

Tyrion gives him a look that says, _you can be_, as he signals to the bartender for another glass. “Why did you tell her that, then?”

“I was _drunk_, as I said. Cersei—she sent me a barrage of extremely angry texts that day. And I heard—” Jaime pauses, and takes a sip of his whiskey.

“You heard…?” Tyrion encourages.

“I heard that Brienne thought I looked _average_,” he mumbles. _Gods, this is embarrassing._

“_No_,” Tyrion exhales, all exaggerated dismay, and puts his hand to his chest in mock outrage. “_You_? _Average_? Say it ain’t so, Jaime.”

“Oh, shut up. She _doesn’t_ think that, anyway, I found out later. But I insulted her, and… she punched me. Gave me a black eye. She has a mean right hook, actually.”

“Gods be good, I love her already,” Tyrion exclaims, as he takes his next glass from the waiting bartender. “When’s the elopement? Please let me be at the ceremony. Do it tomorrow, I’m still here tomorrow.”

“Hells, Tyrion, we haven’t even _kissed_. We haven’t even _held hands_. We’ve been out a few times, but I’m not even sure they’re _dates_.”

“How could you _not_ be sure?” Tyrion is giving him a look that Jaime would be right to interpret as, _are you both twelve years old?_ “They’re dates, or they’re not.”

“They _feel_ like dates, to me. But we’ve never actually… clarified.”

Tyrion plasters his palms to his face. “Gods, Jaime, I forget that you’ve never actually had to ask a woman out. You _were _the one that asked?”

“Not… exactly.” Cersei had always just—_arranged_ things for him. Things that never got very far, or lasted very long. “I may have asked her to show me around the Stormlands. We’ve been… sightseeing.” He swishes the last two drops of his second whiskey in his glass.

“I’ll take it ‘sightseeing’ isn’t a euphemism for anything. So, just regular tourist stuff, or…?”

“Mostly.” He thinks it’s probably wise not to mention how much cheese he still has in his fridge from that farmers’ market. “But she took me to her island last weekend.”

“_Her_ island? Jaime, is she _rich_? Like, proper rich? Not that I’m recommending asking Father for his blessing, but he’d be—well, I’m not sure he’s constitutionally capable of being over the moon. But whatever’s closest to that for the old bastard.”

“_No_, she isn’t rich. Her ancestors were Evenstars of Tarth, back when that title still existed. All her family has left now is a decent-sized house, a little bit of land, and—I don’t know, the respect of the island’s small population, something like that.”

“Alright, we’re right back to the elopement then.”

Jaime needs another drink. “Tyrion, I was serious when I said we haven’t even _held hands_.” Hells, he needs two drinks. It’s his turn to signal to the bartender for another two glasses.

“Hmm. You think she likes you, though? Despite the punching?”

“I think we’re quite past that, if she actually brought me to her island.” Jaime shushes the little voice in his head that tells him otherwise. “But she’s—I don’t know what she is. Nervous. Afraid of something. Every time I feel like I want to—I don’t know, ask her out on a date, a proper one, or—or even kiss her—” _Gods_, he had wanted to kiss her in that meadow— “I just get this feeling that I shouldn’t. Part of that is, it’s me, I know, but part of it is just this feeling that she might… _crumble_. Collapse. If I even tried any of that.” Jaime leans back in his seat again, stretches out his legs under the table. “I tried to compliment her eyes, multiple times, and she would blush and thank me, but it also felt like… she wanted to dig a hole in the ground and hide there.”

“Right.” Some measure of understanding seems to be dawning in Tyrion’s eyes. “You said she was ugly, didn’t you?”

“I said I _called_ her ugly,” Jaime snaps. “And I shouldn’t have.”

The bartender brings two glasses, and Tyrion helps himself to one before Jaime can protest. His brother hasn’t even finished his last drink.

“I’ll work from the assumption that she’s at least _plain_, then. And you’re… not. Maybe there’s something in that that’s making her scared. You’re very—” Tyrion waves his hand over Jaime as he searches for the right word, and settles for: “You’re_ not_ average.”

“Wow, thank you so much for that glowing compliment.”

“Hells, you don’t need praise on your looks from your own brother, do you? You’re so beautiful, dear brother, the handsomest in the land, your golden hair glitters in the sunlight and your green eyes shine brighter than emeralds—”

Jaime shudders and holds up his hand. “Okay, I get it.”

“Jaime, take it from me,” Tyrion declares, spreading his arms. “Those of us who tend towards, shall we say, _unconventional_ body types. We’ve faced cruelty our entire lives, intentional or not.” The brothers share a look, then; Jaime is more than aware of what Tyrion had to experience, not least from their own family. “It’s only natural that we treat the positive attention of other people, especially _beautiful_ people, with suspicion. She’s probably just trying to protect herself, that’s all.”

“What should I do then?” Jaime groans. “Disfigure myself?” He lifts his glass to his mouth and swallows far too much whiskey in one go. How is this glass close to empty already? He doesn’t remember drinking from it at all.

“I—I’m going to hope you weren’t being serious, Jaime. And far be it from me to give you any advice on entering a committed relationship.”

Tyrion stops for a while, as if to take a breath. He’s thought of Tysha, Jaime knows. It’s the only real relationship his brother has ever had, but their father had put a stop to that soon enough. _She’s not good enough for the Lannisters_, he had said. _Not even Tyrion_, he had implied.

“My advice would be,” Tyrion continues, after a beat, “give her some space to breathe, but not too much. Show her that you care, that you think of her, that she makes you happy. Encourage her—gently—when she shows any interest. Maybe actually ask her out on a real date, brother, if she doesn’t ask you first.”

“You think she might ask me _first_?” Jaime can’t imagine Brienne ever saying those words. Or even texting them.

“Who knows what’s going on in her mind. When are you next meeting her?”

“I was supposed to meet her today,” Jaime says, and he can’t quite restrain the despondency in his voice. “But then you told me you were coming.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“She can’t make it.” He leans forward and bangs his head on the table. How many glasses of whiskey has he had again?

“Gods, you are far too devastated by this,” Tyrion laughs. “You’ve really got it bad, brother.”

“I know,” Jaime sighs into the woodgrain.

“Well,” Tyrion pats him on the shoulder. “Whenever you next see her in person. Ask her on a date, Jaime. _Using that word._ Clarity is key.”

Jaime sits back up again, and is overtaken by an urge to _laugh_.

“What now?” Tyrion must think he’s gone mad. Mad by way of Brienne. And also whiskey.

“I guess you did talk some sense into me, didn’t you? Just not the sense that Father wanted.”

“I suppose I did,” Tyrion chuckles.

They spend the rest of that whiskey-fuelled Saturday afternoon together, until it stretches into the evening and into the night. It’s nice to do this, just the two of them, away from King’s Landing, away from the rest of the family. He even stays the night in Tyrion’s suite, though that might have been more a result of inebriation than any kind of brotherly bond.

He doesn’t text Brienne for the rest of that day, and he tells himself he’s giving her a bit of space, like Tyrion suggested. The truth is, Jaime is the one who needs space, and time, to wrap his head around that whole conversation with his brother.

But Sunday comes around, and Tyrion said to let her know that he cares, and thinks of her, didn’t he? He has a few pictures from Tarth that he hasn’t sent her yet, including his favourite of the photos he took of her that day. She’s standing in the grass against the blue sky, and she looks comfortable, human, nothing other than herself. Yet there’s something ethereal about her at the same time—to Jaime, at least. He wasn’t sure he’d wanted to send this to her at first—wasn’t sure how she’d react—but he thinks he’d like her to know that this is how he sees her. She had seemed so disbelieving of his admiration.

So he sends it to her, along with a few other images, before he can ruin it by thinking too hard about it. Brienne doesn’t reply; probably busy with Margaery, he expects. He spends the rest of the afternoon trying to ignore his phone.

Then, around five, he finally gets a text from Brienne. It doesn’t acknowledge the photos, but this—this is better.

**Hey, **her text says.** I know this is really last minute. But are you free for dinner tonight? **

Dinner. Just dinner. That sounds very much like a date to him, though she didn’t mention the word. So she _did_ ask him first. Assuming this is a date, of course.

As Jaime types his reply—he’ll pick her up at seven, he decides, he’s never done that before—he smiles to himself as he adds a happy face emoji to the end of his message. He thinks he’ll ask about it later, using that word. _Is this a date, Brienne?_, he’ll say. Maybe he’ll tuck her hair behind her ear as he does it, let his finger linger on her heated cheek as she blushes. As touches go, it might be nothing compared to a kiss. Or it might be far more intimate than a kiss could ever be. He’ll do it regardless. Clarity is key, after all.

_You could talk about it_, Tyrion had said yesterday, and though he hadn’t meant it for this particular situation, Jaime thought the advice was sound. They _could_ talk about it, him and Brienne—about sightseeing, and dating, and all the things that come after. They _will_.

But first, he has to pick her up at seven, at the address she’s just texted him. He’s about to look up the route when his phone buzzes again.

**See you at 7 😊**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, parallel narratives. I do love them.


	6. A man and a woman go to dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I switch POVs pretty frequently in this one, so I’ve used a triangle ▼ to indicate Jaime’s POV and a circle ❍ for Brienne’s.

▼

_Alright, Jaime, play it cool,_ Jaime tells himself. He folds his arms and leans back against his car in what he hopes is a natural pose. _You have a plan. After dinner, when you’re both alone, ask if this is a date, tuck hair behind ear, let finger linger on cheek, etc. _He looks down at himself._ Is this pose terrible? It’s terrible. Maybe I shouldn’t fold my arms? _He shifts and rests one hand against the side mirror instead. _What do I do with the other hand now?_ He places it on his hip. _This is stupid. Oh fuck, I see her._  
  


❍

_Stay calm, Brienne_, Brienne tells herself as she pauses just inside the main entrance of her apartment building. _It’s just dinner. You never said ‘date’, did you? You can still pretend it’s just dinner._ She can see Jaime through the glass, standing at his car in what looks like a very uncomfortable position. _He needs to stop rolling his sleeves up past his elbows. Wait, no, he should never stop doing that._ By the time she steps out of the building, the heat of her blush has already spread throughout her entire body.  
  


▼

_She’s here, she’s here. _The words are an alarm in Jaime’s head as Brienne walks towards him, and he pulls his hand back from the side mirror with a jerk. She’s wearing the blue blouse he likes, the one she was wearing at the office when he first noticed her eyes, but this evening she’s worn it loose and paired with dark jeans._ She’s blushing already; that’s a good sign, right? Okay, Jaime, be smooth. _

“Hey,” Jaime says in greeting. _Fuck, that wasn’t smooth, that must have been two octaves lower than my regular voice_. He clears his throat. “Hey, Brienne.”  
  


❍

“Hey,” Brienne replies, trying to get a hold on the tremor in her voice. She absently smooths down her blouse, the one she knows he likes because it brings out her eyes. “Sorry for the late notice.” _Why the hells am I speaking like I’m writing an email? _

“No—” Jaime scrambles, “Don’t apologise for—I’m happy to—I would have—” and then he just exhales without finishing any one of those sentences.

“Well,” Brienne says, softly and courageously, “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Me too,” Jaime smiles.  
  


▼

_Don’t apologise for asking,_ was what he meant to say._ I’m happy to have dinner with you anytime. I would have dropped everything even if you had given me five minutes notice. Okay, maybe not that last one, that’s probably too much._

He opens the car door on the passenger side and gestures to the seat. “Shall we?”

“Oh! Um, I was thinking we could walk.” Brienne rocks slightly on the balls of her feet. “I know a place about ten minutes from here. Maybe not as fancy as you’re used to—” _Oh fuck, does she think _I’m_ too fancy?_ “I mean, it’s nothing fancy, but it’s good. It’s seafood, if that’s alright with you? I called ahead and booked a table, but we can always cancel it.”  
  


❍

_Oh fuck, now he thinks I think he’s too fancy_.

Brienne just wanted to pick somewhere familiar, and safe, and reliable. The food at the seafood place is delicious enough that he’ll remember the experience, but the ambience is also casual enough that it could just be a meal between friends, if that’s where this ends up going.

“Sure. Seafood sounds great.” He closes the door and locks the car. “We can walk. Is it okay if I park here?”

“It should be fine, I think.” Brienne points uselessly in the direction in which she’s already started walking. “It’s this way.”

“Seems like a nice neighbourhood,” Jaime comments, as he catches up.

“Oh, it’s decent. Quiet. A bit of a distance from the office, but the rent is reasonable enough that I can still get a small apartment to myself.”

“That’s nice,” he nods. “Having your own space.”  
  


▼

_I hate small talk. I am _above_ small talk._

“How was your day with Margaery?” Jaime asks.

_Is this small talk? I’m showing interest in her life; that’s good, right?_

“It was good. She’s…” Brienne bites her lip. “We had a good talk.”

_Do I want to know what they talked about? Did they talk about me? Is that why she texted me? _Jaime opens his mouth and almost asks a question to that effect, but decides against it._ I don’t want to know, anyway. Do I?_

He opens his mouth again as they stop to wait at a crossing, but before he can think of the right phrasing, Brienne turns to him. “How was your meeting with the client yesterday?”

“What meet—Oh! Um. It was good too. Illuminating.” _Gods, has a meeting with a client ever been ‘illuminating’? She’s going to see right through this._

But Brienne simply says, “That’s good.”

Jaime tries his best not to think about elopements. _Damn it, Tyrion._  
  


❍

They cross the road and walk for the next block or so in an uncomfortable silence. Brienne doesn’t know why Jaime is being so quiet. He’s usually the one to get their conversations going. _I should have just let him drive_, she thinks, though the restaurant is barely two minutes by car from her apartment building.  
  


▼

_I’m being too quiet. I’ve clean forgotten how to make conversation. Quick, Jaime, think of something to say._

And so Jaime blurts out the only thing that’s on his mind right now.

“Is this a date?”  
  


▼❍

_Oh fuck._  
  


❍

Brienne stops in the middle of the pavement. If she could have done so by screeching to a halt, she would have. “Oh! Oh gods—”

“I’m so sorry.” Jaime wipes his hand down his face. “I didn’t mean for it to come out quite so… bluntly.”

“No—um—it’s fine. It, it doesn’t have to be a date if you don’t want it to be.” _No, Brienne, that suggests you already think it’s a date_. “Uh, I mean, do you want it to be a—”

“Yes!” Jaime exclaims before she can complete her question. “… Do you?”

“… Yes. I think I do.” She should probably be making eye contact while saying this, but Brienne is finding the cracks in the concrete beneath her feet particularly fascinating right now.

“Okay,” Jaime responds, and he seems on the verge of laughing with relief. At least, that’s what she can tell while still staring at the pavement. “Good. Great.”  
  


▼

They turn and walk a few more steps, as if everything hadn’t just changed between them. Jaime didn’t tuck her hair behind her ear, or let his finger linger on her cheek while she blushed. But he got an answer, and it was the answer he wanted.

He can’t seem to stop grinning.

Then, he feels a tickle on the edge of his palm. He looks down just in time to see Brienne retract her hand back to her thigh.

“Shut up,” she mumbles.

“I didn’t say a word!” Jaime protests, bringing his eyes up to her face. She’s still refusing to make eye contact. He didn’t think he could grin even wider.

“You were going to.”

“If I was going to, I would have said, ‘Go ahead. I want you to.’”

He can see her shift her gaze from her own feet to his hand again. She grabs it, not gently, but urgently, as if she would have lost all her bravery if she had waited a second longer.

“Shut up,” Brienne mumbles again.

Jaime obeys. He intertwines his fingers with hers.  
  


❍

Jaime’s hand is warm. Brienne knows it is warm because it is connected to her own hand. She curls her fingers upwards, matches her fingertips to each of his knuckles. Her thumb strokes the flesh in the curve between his thumb and index finger. His hand feels _muscular_, how could a hand feel _muscular_? But of course a hand that is linked to Jaime’s forearm must be—

And then she realises they’ve missed a turn entirely.

“Sorry, we’ll have to turn back. I forgot to take a right back there.” She leads him back in the direction they came from. Because she can do that now. Because she is holding his hand.

“Good,” Jaime replies.

“Good?” _Why would that be good?_

He lifts their hands slightly. “More time for this.”

_Oh._  
  


▼

The restaurant is small, but cosy. An eclectic assortment of historical illustrations of the Stormlands hang on its walls, alongside other decorative items featuring various marine animals. There’s a remarkably big model of a crab hanging over an empty table in the corner, and Jaime isn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when they’re directed to a different table.

He trusts Brienne to order her usual—she seems to be pretty friendly with the owners, who look at him approvingly. He finds this to be quite the confidence booster, and sits up a bit straighter in his chair. He can feel his knee touching hers under the table.

“Hey,” Brienne says, after she’s ordered. “How are you with spicy food?”

_I’m pathetic._ “I can manage.” _I’m an idiot._

“They have this amazing homemade hot sauce here. It’s not on the menu, but I always ask for it to go with my shrimp. We can get it on the side as a dip.”

“I’m game.” _I’m also an idiot, but I already knew that part._

Three shrimps-dipped-in-hot-sauce in, Jaime is already sweating.

“I thought you said you could manage!” Brienne laughs, as she hands him a paper napkin.

“I lied,” he confesses, dabbing at his nose.

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know.” _Fuck this hot sauce to all seven hells and back._ “To impress you, I guess.”

Brienne blushes as she moves the bowl of sauce towards her side of the table. “You don’t need to do that, Jaime.”

“Isn’t that what people do on first dates?” he says, from behind the napkin.

“I guess so.” Brienne gives him a rare smirk as she dips her entire shrimp into the sauce and pops it in her mouth. _She’s superhuman. But I think I already knew that part, too._

“My plan backfired, anyway.” Not that it was an actual plan as opposed to a stumble headfirst into hubris. Or rather, stupidity.

“I don’t know,” Brienne says, in the direction of the hot sauce. “You made an effort. It’s endearing.”

Jaime would be pleased by that, but he’s otherwise occupied with chugging his glass of iced water, while motioning to the server for a refill.  
  


❍

The owner of the restaurant offers a sort of conspiratorial smile to Brienne while Jaime takes his credit card out to pay for the meal. She’d be more comfortable going dutch, to be frank, except they’d had enough arguments over the past four weekends about who would pay for entrance fees and sandwiches and ferry tickets and so forth. Jaime almost always won, on the basis that she was doing him a favour in the first place by showing him around.

As the little machine spits out Jaime’s receipt, Brienne remembers him physically blocking her from handing cash over to the puzzled woman at the art museum’s ticketing counter. And how she found that he had slipped money into her pocket at some point during their time on Tarth, though she had deliberately arrived at the ferry terminal early so she could pay for both their tickets. She wonders if she should feel offended. She bites back a smile instead.

They walk back to her apartment building, hand in hand. They don’t speak much again, but the silence is something pleasant this time. As if a weight has lifted, and yet also _settled_ between them both. She reaches her other hand over and wraps it around his forearm. _Gods, it feels even better than it looks. How is that even possible?_

They reach his car, linger there, hands still glued together. _Ask him, Brienne. Just ask. What’s the worst that could happen?_

“Do you—do you want to come up? Margaery brought wine this afternoon but we didn’t get around to it. If you’d like some.”

“Oh! Uh—”

And then Brienne realises how that sounds. _Oh gods, I didn’t mean to imply_— “I don’t mean—” _Fuck, does he think I’m—_ “I haven’t even—” _Nope, he doesn’t need to know that— _“I just mean—the only thing around here that’s open late is this one pub and that can get really noisy—we could go sit in the park, I suppose, but it’s pretty dark right now and it’s a bit of a detour—or if you need to get home then—”

“No, I, I would love to go up—I mean—to, to talk. Or whatever.”

_Or whatever._  
  


▼

_And, it’s awkward again._

Brienne is sitting next to him on her couch, both her hands in her lap, and she’s so stiff that he’s reminded of the way she sits at her desk at the office. He lets his eyes wander around her apartment while they sit in silence. Everything is simple and functional—couch, lamp, coffee table—save a framed picture on a bookshelf of someone he assumes is her father. But it feels warm nonetheless. Maybe it feels warm because Brienne is in it, because it’s an extension of her. He thinks, for one of the few times in his life, that he is in a space that feels like a home.

Their two glasses of wine sit on her coffee table, untouched.

“Brienne—” he starts, but at the same time five words come out of her mouth in a rush:

“I’ve never kissed anyone before.”  
  


❍

Brienne had been thinking about it the whole way from his car to her couch. It seemed to her like that was where this night was headed, and she just couldn’t stop thinking of those five words. They echoed in her brain as she poured them two glasses of wine, and set them down on the coffee table.

_But I didn’t have to _say _it, did I?_

“Shit. I didn’t mean to—” She brings her hands up to her face, as if she could contain the burning of her skin with her palms.

Then, she feels Jaime’s hand wrap around her wrist, guide her hands down.

“Okay,” he whispers, though there’s no one around to overhear his words. It’s just the two of them, on her couch. This—this is the entire known universe. “Thank you for telling me.”

And then he shifts toward her. Their thighs are two parallel lines, defying all mathematical logic by meeting at every single point. One of Jaime’s hands winds around her waist, towards her lower back. The other is moving up to caress her cheek. Brienne can’t tear her eyes away from his lips, which are moving in closer and closer and—  
  


▼

“Ow! Fuck!”

Jaime’s brain is reverberating in his skull. Okay, so maybe this doesn’t hurt as bad as that one time him and Addam decided to headbutt each other for fun (it wasn’t fun, and they were more than old enough to know that it wouldn’t have been). But when you’re expecting lips to meet instead of foreheads—

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry Jaime.”

“It’s fine,” he says, as he rubs his brow with his fingers. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m sorry. Do you need ice, or something?” He feels her touch on his forehead, tender and selfless, though it must have been equally painful for her.

“No, I’m fine, really.” Jaime opens his eyes and looks through the mess of all of their fingers. Her blue eyes are glistening in the warm glow of the lamp. “Oh hells, Brienne, don’t _cry_.”

“I’m not!” she insists. And then a tear runs down her cheek. “Well, I wasn’t going to until you said _that_!”

He wipes away one tear, and another. “If you don’t want to—if you’re not ready—we don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she says. It sounds to Jaime like fear and desire in the same breath. “It’s just—I’m nervous because I _really_ want to, and I’ve never done it, and I don’t want you to think—”  
  


❍

Words don’t exist.

Jaime is kissing her and words don’t exist.

What are words? There is only the feeling of his lips on hers, his hand around her neck—the same hand that she already knows is warm because her own hand has held it—his other hand on her cheek. There is only her own fingers in his hair, tracing the ridges of his scalp, down to the back of his neck, daring to slip beneath his collar, and Brienne finds that perhaps she has no need for oxygen ever again.

When Jaime breaks from her, all the words come rushing back into her brain, and with that, all her thoughts, her fears. “How was that?” she can’t help but ask.

Jaime just smiles at her, and doesn’t answer. Perhaps words stopped existing for him too. After a while, he asks, “How was that for _you_?”

“I… I liked it.” It sounds trivial, when she puts it that way. But she can’t think of any other way to say it. She just knows she doesn’t want to kiss anyone else but Jaime, ever. But maybe that’s something she should keep to herself for now.

“I liked it too.” He’s still smiling at her. “Do you want to—we could keep—”

“Please,” she hears herself say. _Please._

As Jaime leans towards her again—leans over her, more like; she must have reclined onto her cushions at some point in that period of wordlessness—Brienne suddenly feels compelled to voice a confession. To put something into words.

“Jaime,” she whispers up to him. “I—I never thought I would have a chance at—at any of this.” A chance at dates, and kisses—and whatever comes after, eventually. A chance at _love_, she dares to think, even if she won’t say that word quite yet, and won’t for a while longer.

Brienne hadn’t said those words for any reason other than this impulse to be honest with Jaime. But he gives her a reply she never could have expected: “I could say the same to you.”

“Really?” _How could that be possible?_

“Really,” Jaime says, with a quiet conviction, a singular truth. He tucks her hair behind her ear, and lets his fingers linger on her cheek. “But we could have a chance, don’t you think?”

This time, Brienne doesn’t reply. She doesn’t put it into words.

Words—words don’t exist. Not for the rest of this night.


	7. A man and a woman wake up

Jaime blinks his eyes open; slips gently out of a dream. It was a nice dream. He was kissing Brienne in this dream, he thinks.

He doesn’t notice it at first—there’s nothing unfamiliar about a ceiling painted white, especially in the semi-darkness—but as he stretches his limbs, he realises he’s on a couch that isn’t his own, next to a coffee table that isn’t his own, next to a lamp that isn’t his own. He’s under a blanket that isn’t his own. He’s in a t-shirt and sweatpants that aren’t his own, but seem to fit just right, anyway. The clothes that are his own have been folded and stacked in a neat pile on the coffee table. His watch and phone sit on top.

It wasn’t all a dream then.

He reaches over to check the time. Just before six in the morning. He looks at the sky through a window that isn’t his own, sees that it’s cobalt already. He’ll need to leave soon, or he’ll be caught in traffic, and he doesn’t want to start his Monday morning caught in traffic. He doesn’t want Monday morning traffic to ruin the afterglow of his Sunday night, a Sunday night filled with kisses tender and ardent. He runs the tip of his tongue over his lips.

Jaime rolls off the couch, folds the blanket neatly, leaves it there. He walks over to Brienne’s bedroom, knocks on the door. No answer, but—he’d rather not leave without telling her. He twists the doorknob as quietly as he can.

She’s still asleep, something peaceful, all her nerves in hibernation. Her limbs are outstretched, spread across almost the entirety of her bed, though it’s a bed meant for two. Jaime makes a mental note of this habit of hers, tucks it away for when it’ll eventually be relevant to him, because it will be. It may take weeks, maybe months, but it will. His bed is bigger, anyway.

“Brienne,” he whispers, leaning down and shaking one of her shoulders. She almost starts awake, not used to having someone else there to rouse her from her sleep. Her eyes meet his, and soften. He sees it in her too—the realisation that it wasn’t all a dream. Her cheeks turn a shade darker in the muted light of daybreak.

“Hey,” she whispers back, shifting herself up to lean back against the headboard. “What time is it?”

Jaime takes the liberty of sitting on the edge of her bed. “Six or so. I have to leave soon. Got to head back to my place before work. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Okay. I hope the couch was fine.” She reaches the tips of her fingers under his palm; he lifts it slightly, lets them find their way into the depression at its centre. They can do this now—touch hands. Eleven hours ago, it would have still been a faint hope.

“Sorry I—” she stammers, “the bed—”

“No—don’t, don’t _worry._ I told you last night, it’s fine. I slept well.” It was past midnight by the time they came up for air; they would have gone on, if the next day wasn’t a work day. He had thought about driving home—it wouldn’t have taken long at that time of night—but Brienne had tentatively offered her couch, a blanket, a change of clothes, accompanied by an apology that she couldn’t let him share her bed, not yet. Jaime had thought about how her apartment felt like a home, and agreed.

He leans in to give her a kiss goodbye—another thing that would have been a faint hope, nine hours ago—but she shields her lips with her hand. “I’ve just woken up,” she mumbles from behind her fingers. Jaime doesn’t think he’ll mind, really—it’s not like he’s brushed his teeth either—but maybe this is just a little too much intimacy for right now. So he nods, and stands up from her bed. He’s about to say _bye then, see you in three hours_, when she flings her blanket off her legs.

Her _legs_. She’d changed last night in her bedroom, after they’d said goodnight, into what must be the shortest shorts in the world, a fact that she doesn’t seem to be at all conscious of. Miles and miles of Brienne’s bare skin—or perhaps bare is the wrong word, because the freckles that dust lightly over her cheeks form constellations across her legs too. It’s more than he’s ever seen of her, just right there. It’s his entire field of vision. He can’t speak.

Brienne just gets up from her bed—she might have said something like “Hold on,” but it turns out he can’t hear, too, when all he can see is her skin—and walks towards her bathroom. She leaves the door open, and he just stands in the doorway as she fills her cup with water, squeezes a blob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush, and starts brushing. While she’s doing so, she squats down—_legs_—and opens the cupboard beneath her sink, rummages in it for something.

When she stands again, she has a new toothbrush in her hand, and holds it out to him. “If you want to,” she says, matter-of-factly. She doesn’t seem to realise there’s any significance in this act. They’ve just had their first date, and now she’s offering him a _toothbrush_ in her apartment. But it seems as if she just thinks of it as—addressing a practicality. So he doesn’t say a thing besides thanking her, and takes the toothbrush from her hand. When she’s done, she makes way for him at the sink. It’s all just on the edge of domesticity, and Jaime finds his thoughts are getting very far ahead of—of whatever the status of their relationship is.

He turns to her once his own teeth are clean, the mint of Brienne’s toothpaste something subtly strange in his mouth, and sees her leaning against the door, waiting. He kisses her then, a kiss good morning, a kiss goodbye-for-now, just for the next three hours. Her arms wind around his neck. He has to go on his tiptoes, slightly—this is their first kiss standing up, he realises—and this sensation is something subtly strange too. But not unwelcome.

Jaime pulls back from her, reluctantly, and her hands move to his shoulders. He looks down at himself. “Do you… need these clothes back now?” he asks. “I can change back into my own.”

“You can wear them back home if you like,” she shrugs. “Or you can leave them in the laundry basket.”

“I’ll—I think I’ll wear them, if that’s alright. Wouldn’t mind driving back in comfort, this time of the morning. I’ll give them back to you once they’re washed.”

She smiles a little at that, and he thinks she knows from how he said those words that he’s the kind of man who has the privilege of having other people do his laundry. It’s not that he _doesn’t _know how to use a washing machine, but—

And then Jaime has a thought.

“Hey—do you—my apartment is right by the office. It’s—if you want a lift—I’d want to leave soon, but—”

Maybe he should have given this thought a bit more time to percolate before verbalising it.

“Oh—I don’t—well.” Brienne reddens, but doesn’t say _no_. She must be thinking of her bus, and train, and shuttle, even as she must be thinking of what it means to be stepping into his apartment for the first time, so soon after he’d first stepped into hers, and slept there. They’d just had their first date, for crying out loud.

“Sorry,” he says on instinct, though he doesn’t really think he has anything to apologise for, besides perhaps destabilising her in some way. “I didn’t mean to presume—”

“Oh, don’t—it was nice of you to offer. Could you wait fifteen minutes for me to shower, at least? I can bring my clothes—and I don’t take much time to get ready—but I’d—I think it’s better if I showered here.”

“Of course. Sure.” As Brienne nods and heads to her bedroom to grab a change of clothes, Jaime tries his hardest to remember exactly what state he’d left his apartment in yesterday evening. It should be fine, he thinks. It’s a service apartment, and housekeeping was just in on Friday.

Fifteen minutes later, they step out the door, Brienne’s work clothes hanging over her arm, Jaime’s clothes from last night hanging over his. Her work bag is slung over her shoulder. Jaime saw her throw some of her makeup in there; he knows she doesn’t wear much, but it was barely anything, three tubes. She’s in the same dark jeans, and a t-shirt, and her straw blonde hair is still damp and sticking to her face in strands, the skin there pink from the steam of the shower.

She locks the door, drops the keys in her bag. Then he holds her hand as they make their way down the stairs and to his car. Because he can do that now. It’s no longer just a faint hope.

* * *

Brienne is sitting uncomfortably on Jaime’s couch. It’s a very comfortable couch, to be quite honest, but she’s sitting uncomfortably anyway, because it’s hitting her full in the face that Jaime Lannister is _rich._

She’s been to Margaery’s apartment, which she shares with Loras, and they’ve all been to Renly’s. The two Tyrells are pretty well off, as is Renly—significantly more so than she is, though all four of their positions at Lannister Corp are pretty much comparable. They have family money she doesn’t have, and their homes reflect that accordingly.

But _this_. It’s not an actual Lannister home, but it’s still a luxury service apartment paid for with Lannister money. Not just a service apartment—a _penthouse_. It looks like it was conjured out of a magazine spread, all branded minimalist furniture in black or neutral colours, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Everything is spotless, though Jaime must have lived here for months, and he doesn’t strike her as an obsessive cleaner. He had some clothes slung over an armchair when they first got here, which he had quickly snatched and flung into his bedroom. And there’s a dirty dish or two in the sink, but that’s about it.

She’s suddenly embarrassed that Jaime had to sleep on her couch.

He’s been in the bathroom for an age, which doesn’t surprise her in the least. She’s already in her work clothes, and it took her less than five minutes to apply the little makeup she wears to work. She might have to leave her t-shirt and jeans here, she realises, because her work bag is stuffed with documents this morning, and she’d rather not have to answer any questions regarding why she might have clothes spilling out of it.

The news is running on his gigantic flatscreen TV, but she hasn’t absorbed any of it since she switched it on. Her brain is too preoccupied with the events of the past thirteen hours. The dinner that turned out to be a date after all. The handholding. Inviting him up to her apartment. That embarrassing collision of their foreheads—she’s glad neither of them developed any unfortunate bruises this morning, and she hopes she can laugh about that soon enough. Then, the kissing.

Gods, the _kissing_.

And now she’s in _his_ apartment. Waiting for him. So they can go to work. Together.

Should they?

Hells. She hadn’t thought about that. What would it look like? It’s just a couple of blocks away, so they can walk from his apartment building, but what would it _look like_, the two of them walking into Lannister Corp together? People have only just stopped talking about the punch as it is, and the fact that she kept her job after. And surely—surely other people have noticed how he walks by her cubicle, and how she walks by his office. Have they noticed? Margaery noticed, the first _week._ And now they’re walking from his apartment building to the office, in full view of everyone. _What would it look like?_

A hand on her shoulder interrupts her thoughts. She turns to see Jaime, in his suit, hair slicked back. There’s none of the softness she saw in him earlier this morning. He fits into this apartment, looking like this.

“Brienne—are you okay?” he asks, a look of concern on his face. “I said I’m ready.”

“Yeah—sorry. I’m just. I’m thinking. You have a—it’s a nice place.”

“You already told me that,” he replies, amused. “I like yours better, anyway. I was thinking about it in the shower.”

Brienne is pretty sure Jaime has one of those fancy rain showers that she’s never seen in person, let alone experienced. It seems like a strange place to realise that he likes her tiny apartment better. “Why would you think _that_?”

“Feels like a home,” he says. “Nothing here belongs to me. It’s nice, but it isn’t mine.”

She wants to ask him if he’ll find somewhere more permanent, somewhere he can make his own. But that seems too much like asking him if he’ll be staying in the Stormlands, and he said himself, on Tarth, that he’s not sure if he’ll have to go back to King’s Landing at some point. It’s not a conversation she thinks they should be having just before work. Or just after their first date.

So Brienne asks him something else, something inconsequential. “Is it fine if I—can I leave my clothes here? I don’t have space in my bag.”

“Sure.” Jaime walks over to his fridge and opens it. “Gods, I could really eat something. Haven’t done any grocery shopping in a while, though. I have cheese—” Brienne wonders if it’s the cheese from the farmers’ market— “but nothing to go with it. And milk.”

He takes out a container that looks like it has barely a cup’s worth of milk in it, shakes it helplessly, as if it would make the liquid magically multiply. When it doesn’t, he puts it back and closes the fridge.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “Wanna have breakfast somewhere? There’s that cafe between here and the office.”

Brienne knows exactly which cafe he means. _Everybody_ knows that cafe. She can’t be seen in that cafe with Jaime on a Monday morning. Besides the whole—punching thing, she doesn’t report to him for _any_ of her projects. It wouldn’t look like they were having a work meeting over breakfast, surely.

_What would it look like?_

“Jaime—it’s—” She digs her fingers into her thighs. “Do you think it’s a good idea for us to—to be seen together?”

He knits his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—what would people _think_? If they saw us together?” _What would it look like?_

“Oh—fuck, is there some company policy against this?” He asks this with vehemence, as if he’d be ready to tear that policy apart if one existed. Brienne thinks he probably could do that in the span of a day. An hour, even, and not just for the Stormlands office—for the entirety of Lannister Corp.

“I don’t think so,” Brienne answers. If there is one, Renly and Loras are blatantly disregarding it. Margaery too, though her office dalliances are usually short-lived.

“You… you don’t want to be seen with me?” There’s a note of something wounded in his voice.

“No! I mean, it’s not that.” _Why would he think _that_? If anything, _I_ should be the one to ask _him_ that question._ “I punched you,” she exhales.

He smiles, as if remembering it fondly. “Yes, I’m aware that was something that happened.”

“Then I didn’t lose my job. Because _you_ intervened. If we’re seen together—people might think—I don’t know.” She doesn’t quite know how to put it into words, the _scandal_ of it. Or maybe it’s more that there are so many possible interpretations she doesn’t want to consider. So she settles for: “They might connect the dots in a way that they shouldn’t.”

“Oh,” is all Jaime says.

Brienne stands up from the couch, and walks over to where he’s still standing by the fridge. “I would love to have breakfast with you. But I think—there are things we need to figure out, first.”

He nods, a little stiffly. “I’ll work something out.” Brienne has a hunch that Jaime might just want to let people _know_, office gossip be damned. Perhaps later, she thinks, if he can’t _work something out_. Much later, and that’s assuming all goes well between them.

Brienne puts her hand over his on the kitchen counter. “I guess—I can go first. Into the office I mean.” She hopes no one from work walks by Jaime’s apartment building as she leaves. Not that they’d necessarily know that _he_ lives there, but _she_ definitely doesn’t, and that’s fodder for gossip all the same.

“Alright. I’ll see you in the office then.”

She’s about to turn, pick up her bag and leave, but she thinks of how he said, _you don’t want to be seen with me?_ And it suddenly dawns on Brienne that he needs some kind of reassurance, with her. The way he did after that meeting with HR, when he asked if she really thought he looked average. The way he did when he asked her last night, if it was meant to be a date. She always thought she’d be the insecure one, if she ever entered a relationship, but maybe Jaime—

So she moves in closer, lets her lips touch his. They kissed for hours yesterday night, and they kissed in the bathroom this morning, but still this kiss feels like something new, and different. There’s so much more to discover, between them—between two bodies—and for the first time in her life, she might feel anticipation about that prospect, rather than fear.

“Bye Jaime,” she breathes, when they break apart. “See you in the office.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just finished writing Chapter 11 today (the last chapter I'll be posting for a while), and I'm DYING to share it. Have to wait till Thursday, though! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, whether or not it's your first time reading it :)


	8. A woman goes on dates with a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I randomly decided to add chapter titles eight chapters in. Each one is now “A [woman/man] (depending on the POV character) [action] [for/with] a [man/woman]”, or “A [man/woman] and a [woman/man] [action]” if it's both POVs, and the order of man/woman is determined by whose POV begins the chapter. I like the idea of using very dry and factual statements because this whole fic is all about discovering the emotional core within seemingly mundane actions. Anyway you probably don't care about my chapter title system lol, enjoy this instalment!

All of a sudden, Brienne thinks she might have a boyfriend.

They haven’t talked about it—the word. The _status_. But she thinks she might have one.

It’s been just over a week since her very first date. Her very first _kiss_. Her very first time having a man over to her apartment for the purpose of kissing. Her very first time being at _his_ apartment, which wasn’t _supposed_ to be for the purpose of kissing, but became a location at which they had kissed, nonetheless. People don’t have boyfriends within a week of doing all those things, do they?

But it feels like she might have one.

She’s not seeing anyone else, obviously. And she knows _he’s_ not, at least not in the past week, because—well, they’ve been together almost all the time. Unless he went on dates after work last Monday and Tuesday. Or in the middle of the night. Or after they had breakfast on Saturday, or before he was at her apartment on Sunday afternoon. Or maybe on Sunday night. Or those couple of times he went out for business meetings. But one of those times he took his assistant. He could be dating his assistant? But Peck is dating Pia in accounting, isn’t he?

Anyway, she supposes all those scenarios are plausible. But it sounds quite tiring for him, in her opinion, if Jaime is really doing any or all of that. And he probably wouldn’t have sent her sad face emojis on Monday evening, when she left for the gym in a hurry, right after work. She just—she needed some time to herself, to internalise everything. When she checked her phone after, she found that he had also texted her, **I have a gym in my building, if you ever need to use it**. That isn’t something you’d text someone if you were dating people in addition to that someone, right?

Then, on Tuesday morning, she had actually given Jaime advance notice about going over to Margaery’s that evening. Which is something they do now, apparently—tell each other about their schedules. It’s not that she was avoiding him per se, though she did feel guilty when he sent her a sad face emoji again, the one with the single tear. But Brienne just needed someone to be there in front of her—so she could _externalise_ everything, this time—and Margaery told her Loras wasn’t going to be home that evening. So Brienne went over, told Margaery all that had happened since, Gods, since _two days before_, and sat through an indecent amount of shrieking in the process. She had to make Margaery promise not to do any of that shrieking without Brienne present, not even to her brother, and not to Renly.

She especially couldn’t do any of that shrieking in the _office_.

On Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, however, Jaime was all—**See you after work? **or **Going to the gym tonight, wanna join?** or **Come by later. I’ll cook dinner. **She had said yes to all of those things, even the last one, though she had been suspicious of Jaime’s culinary skills considering he only had a single almost-empty container of milk on Monday morning. But he managed, something simple that still tasted wonderful, more wonderful because he had cooked it specially for her.

And then there was wine.

And then more kissing.

And then she slept on _his_ couch this time, in the clothes she lent him when he slept on hers. He hadn’t asked her to share his bed—she had this feeling that he _wanted_ to ask, even though he didn’t— but he had offered to sleep on the couch so she could have the bed all to herself. She said _no, I couldn’t possibly_, and he said _please, you’re my guest_, and they went back and forth about it for far too long, until she decided to just lie down on the couch and not move. He laughed in defeat, and had the concierge send up an extra blanket.

In the morning, he drove her back home. They had breakfast together for the very first time.

At the office, though, for this first week after their first date—Brienne didn’t know what to _do_. How to _act_. Jaime still came by her desk, but now there was something different to his smile, the way he said her name. It was this, this undercurrent of—_I know. I know what it feels like to have your lips on mine. _And she knew the same, could barely look in his eyes because she _knew_. It was because she knew that she felt she could no longer dance with him. She stopped walking by his office.

By Wednesday, he’d noticed. When he walked by her cubicle, smiled at her, said her name, it now had an undercurrent of—_Where have you been? Dance with me, Brienne. What’s wrong with a little dance?_ But he didn’t bring it up on Wednesday evening, or Thursday evening, or Friday evening.

When she woke up on his couch, realised it was a Saturday morning, she felt awash with an immense _relief_. It was ridiculous, this relief of _Saturday_, as if she had survived some perilous ordeal. But it was just five days of—of working in the same office as the man who might be her boyfriend. The man who is also, technically, her _boss._ On the scale of ordeals, this was hardly perilous at all. But she felt the tension leave her body all the same, at the realisation of the significance of a Saturday. There wouldn’t be a need to step into the office on a Saturday. There wouldn’t be a dance. Jaime was there by her side, anyway—on Saturday morning, on Sunday afternoon.

The second Monday after their first date, Brienne decided Mondays would always be _her_ night to go to the gym on her own. She told Jaime so in no uncertain terms. She wanted to see him, she did—out of his suit and his slicked back hair—yet something in her told her it would be good to have that one night to herself, every single week. She would go to the gym where she actually had a membership, not to the gym in his apartment building. Although she had to admit that his gym was really, really, _really_ nice.

But today—today is Tuesday. She’s sitting at her cubicle on a Tuesday morning, has no plans with Margaery tonight, has no plans with _anyone_. And now she has the option of having plans with Jaime, who _might_ be her boyfriend.

Right on cue, he texts her: **Do you have plans tonight?**

**No**, she types, then thinks. She follows with, **Movie?** They haven’t gone for a movie yet. That’s something people do on dates, isn’t it?

**Sounds good**, he replies. She notices he’s typing his next message for a while. When she receives it, it says: **Which cinema?**

Which cinema? There’s one just down the street, and another about fifteen minutes walk away. She’s seen colleagues at both of those. They could go to the one that’s nearest to her apartment, but he’d have to drive all the way there in traffic. And where would he pick her up? Would she wait for him outside his apartment building? There’s also the one that’s about halfway in between here and the office. It’s not too far from the train station. Would she take the train, and have him drive there? That seems safe, but also—she doesn’t think Jaime would be pleased about that. They could take the train _together_, she supposes, or maybe—she’d leave first, and he’d follow—Gods, does he even know how public transport works? She actually doesn’t know the answer to that question. Would he get lost?

And just like that, one question became a hundred. She’s still holding onto her phone, looking at different cinemas on the map, trying to work out all possible permutations of watching a movie with Jaime in public, when he walks by her cubicle.

“Brienne,” he greets, and pauses at her cubicle. He doesn’t—he’s not supposed to _pause_. His eyes dart to her phone.

“Jaime,” she replies, keeping her voice steady as she can. Margaery’s chair is rotating towards them—Brienne can see it out of the corner of her eye—and she glares at Jaime. _Keep walking_, she tries to communicate with her eyes. He looks at her for a few more seconds, then walks away.

She immediately opens her messaging app and types, **I’ll let you know later.** **I’m looking up the timings.** Deciding on the venue _is_ part of looking up the timings, isn’t it?

Jaime starts typing, stops, starts typing again. But when his message arrives, all it says is, **Okay.**

Then, Brienne gets an important email. And another, and another. She has to reply to all of those important emails. It’s just a cinema—it’s just movie timings—but isn’t there so much to do? She has so much to do. She has to eat lunch at her desk, she has too much to do. Next thing she knows it’s four-thirty in the afternoon, and her phone vibrates with another text from Jaime.

**It’s looking like I’ll have to work late. Don’t think I can do a movie, but would still like to have dinner. Can you wait for me?**

Well, I guess that solves the cinema problem, Brienne thinks, though she knows it doesn’t. The cinema problem will continue to exist. They can’t just—avoid movies. But what would it look like—the employee going for movies with her boss, whom the employee had punched? The employee who didn’t lose her job after, because that boss had intervened? _Which cinema? _is just another way of asking _What would it look like?_ And they hadn’t figured out the answer to that question at all.

But she doesn’t say any of that. **Of course**, Brienne replies. **Have some work to finish up, too. I’ll be at my desk. **

At five, Renly comes by her cubicle to invite her for post-work drinks. She declines.

At six, Margaery asks, “Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Brienne says, “No, too much work to do,” but she looks pointedly in the direction of Jaime’s office anyway. Margaery just nods and flashes her a grin. Brienne returns that grin with a weak smile.

At seven, there are just a few people left in the office. Brienne stands up, on the pretext of stretching after a day sitting at her desk, walks to where she can see the entrance to Jaime’s office. The lights are still switched on. Not that she expected otherwise.

At eight, her phone lights up with: **Twenty minutes, I promise. **There’s one, maybe two people left that she can see, and they’re packing up to leave for the day.

**Why don’t I go get takeout?** she texts back. **Meet you at your place at 8.30?**

**Sure, **he says.** Anything’s good, as long as it isn’t spicy.**

Brienne thinks of shrimp dipped in hot sauce and smiles.

At eight-thirty, Brienne sits herself down on a bench in the lobby of Jaime’s apartment building, two bags of takeout beside her. She nods at the man sitting at the concierge, who’s seen her with Jaime three times already in the past week, as did the doorman who kindly let her in. At eight-forty, Jaime bursts through the main doors.

“I’m so sorry.” He leans down to kiss her on the cheek, to Brienne’s surprise. He hasn’t kissed her in public before, even if just on the cheek, even if this is just the lobby of Jaime’s apartment building. “You must be starving.”

“Oh—it’s fine,” she says, still a little stunned. “Sorry you had to work late.”

“Yeah. Had to go through some contracts. Sometimes that takes me awhile.”

Brienne wants to ask Jaime what that means, why going through contracts might take awhile for him specifically. But he’s already picked up the takeout bags and held out his hand, so she takes it and follows him into the elevator.

They put on a movie while they eat, something they’ve both been planning to watch but haven’t gotten around to, and Brienne can’t help but think this is much safer than a cinema. The movie isn’t as good as they had hoped, not even bad enough for them to rant about—it’s just so much more _ordinary_ than they had expected. But they agree to sit through the whole thing anyway.

When they’re done with their food, Jaime puts his arm around her, and she curls into his side. It’s something she never imagined she could do—curling into a man’s side—and it’s not exactly the most comfortable position in the world for someone built like her, but she does it anyway. They’re both still in their work clothes, of course, but Jaime’s taken off his jacket and tie, unbuttoned a couple of buttons. Most importantly, he’s rolled his sleeves up past his elbows. Brienne wraps her hand around his arm absently.

“You like doing that,” Jaime murmurs, his eyes still on the TV.

“Hmm?”

“Touching me there.”

Brienne pulls her hand back. “Should I not?”

“I don’t mind,” he says. “Just an observation.”

She finds she can’t touch him there now, though he’s said he doesn’t mind. She folds her hands in her lap, stares straight at the TV. “I just—they’re nice.”

“My forearms?” he asks, bemused.

“Yeah. Is that creepy?”

Jaime laughs. “No, I’m flattered. I like them too.”

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Of course you do,” she mutters, feels Jaime’s low chuckle travel from his body into hers. She leaves her hands in her lap.

It’s only when the movie ends that Brienne thinks to look at the time. “Oh fuck, it’s late,” she exclaims, jumping up from his couch. “I hope I can still catch the train.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Jaime offers.

“It’s too far. It’ll be past twelve—maybe almost one by the time you get back.”

“I could—” and then he falls silent. “It’s fine,” he says instead. “I’ll drive you.”

_What was that? _“Hold on—what were you going to say?”

“I was going to say—” Jaime looks somewhat sheepish. “I was going to say I could stay over. Then I could drive you to work tomorrow, too. Or drop you off somewhere, if you—if you don’t want us to be seen together.”

“Oh.” _Oh._ “But you’d have to sleep on the—”

“I don’t mind. Only if you don’t mind.”

“I, I don’t mind. Would we need to leave at six, though?” It was fine that one time, and she usually has to be up by six forty-five anyway, but she’d definitely appreciate that extra bit of sleep.

“I could—I could bring my clothes. Get ready at yours. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

_Okay then._ Since neither of them seemed to mind any part of this arrangement, Brienne finds herself in Jaime’s car, driving back to her place past eleven at night. As she looks out the window, the height of the buildings getting shorter and shorter as they travel towards the outskirts of the city, she thinks, once again, that Jaime really might be her boyfriend. She supposes today counts as their sixth date. Or seventh, if she includes the breakfast on Saturday morning, though it was really sort of an extension from Friday night. All of that in—what, _ten days._

“Did you figure out which cinema, in the end?” Jaime asks abruptly, when he stops at a red light.

“What?”

“Which cinema would we have gone to? If I didn’t have to work late?”

“Oh—I—I got caught up with work—”

“Oh.”

Brienne sighs, looks down at her hands. “The truth is, I didn’t know which one to pick, Jaime. I was freaking out about who would see us, if we went to the ones within walking distance of the office, and then it seemed like too far to go to the one near my apartment, although I guess we’re heading there now anyway so I suppose I could have picked that—”

“Brienne—”

“Sorry. I’m rambling. It’s stupid.”

“No—it’s fine.” The light turns green, and Jaime accelerates just a little too quickly. “I just wanted to say—I’d like to watch a movie with you. At a cinema, in public. I’d like to do that with you at some point, without having to worry. I’ll drive to the one in your neighbourhood, if that’s what you’d prefer. But still, I think—this is—it’s something we need to sort out. Being seen.”

“I know,” Brienne mumbles.

“I know I said I’d work something out but—is there anything to figure out, really? Are we doing anything _wrong_?”

“No—I suppose not. But people will _talk_, anyway.” Brienne picks at her fingernails, thinks of how she came to punch Jaime in the first place, thinks of _Brienne the Beauty._

“I—it’s not that I don’t understand it, but—does it matter?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll know if it matters until they start talking.” She’s always tried to brush off people’s words, but—has it ever really worked? Truly worked? Haven’t those words always found ways to burrow underneath her skin, stay there?

“We can’t hide forever,” is Jaime’s response.

Brienne looks over at him. Jaime’s eyes are still firmly on the road. _Forever_. Isn’t it too soon for words like that? Yet, Jaime’s about to stay over at her apartment again, for the second time in ten days. He has a change of clothes in his back seat. He’ll be sleeping on the couch, but—he has a toothbrush waiting for him at her sink. How did this all happen? In _ten days_?

The rest of the drive is quiet. So is the walk from the car to her apartment, though Brienne holds his hand, anyway. He’s sitting on her couch, hands clasped together, when she brings her extra blanket out to him.

“Two months,” she announces, as she sets the blanket down beside him. _Two months_—it feels like a long time compared to _ten days_, but—

Jaime looks up at her. “Two months?”

“We… we keep it quiet for two months. Then—we’ll review the situation.” She doesn’t want to be so businesslike about it, but it’s best to have some kind of timeline. She thinks it’ll help Jaime feel settled, somehow, even if she _is _making him wait.

“Okay,” Jaime exhales. “Two months. If my father doesn’t—”

_Oh_. She forgot about that. She sits down next to him, slips her fingers between his. “We’ll assume he won’t. If he does, and we want to—to continue. Then we… work something out.”

“Okay. Two months.” He turns to look at her, grips her hand tighter. “Will you do something for me, Brienne? Will you—at least not treat me like a stranger? At work?”

“Oh—oh gods, I’m so sorry about that.” Brienne buries her face in Jaime’s arm. “I guess I just—I don’t know how to act around you now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I just think I’ll—I’ll smile too much or something.”

Brienne feels Jaime’s fingers brush her hair away from her face. “I wouldn’t mind that.” _Gods, will he ever not make me blush?_

“How about this.” She perches her chin on his shoulder. “I’ll promise to _try_ not to treat you like a stranger. Is that good enough?”

“Hmm.” Jaime is attempting to sound aloof and failing miserably. “We’ll see how you do this week. Then we can _review the situation_.”

Brienne gives him a playful nudge just before she stands back up. Her hand is still in his. “Goodnight, Jaime.”

“Goodnight, Brienne,” he replies. She takes a step away, two steps, but he won’t let go of her hand. As she rounds the couch, Brienne remembers the first morning she spent in Jaime’s apartment, waiting for him to get ready. She leans over, rests both their hands on his shoulder. “Please, for Gods’ sakes,” she whispers in his ear, “wake up early if you’re gonna spend an hour in the bathroom.”

“I will,” he smirks.

Brienne thinks for a moment, or stops herself from thinking, then gives him a kiss on the cheek, just as he had kissed hers in the lobby of his apartment building. She attempts to walk in the direction of her bedroom—except Jaime’s fingers are still entwined with hers.

“_Goodnight_, Jaime,” she repeats, looking meaningfully at their hands.

Jaime says nothing. He only brings her hand to his lips, kisses it like a knight of old, and lets her go.


	9. A man adapts for a woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back when I wrote this chapter, I was trying to figure out how I could link Office!Jaime more closely to the core of Canon!Jaime, given the parameters I've set up in this story. I figured there's something quite obsessive and intense in him; how might that have been channelled into some other avenue in his life that wouldn't compromise his softness in this verse? It still turned out quite different than other versions of corporate!Jaime you might have read in other fics, but I hope something in this clicks for you anyway.

Back in the day—back in the days before Brienne—Jaime didn’t care very much if he had to work long hours. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that however much he cared was irrelevant. There was always work to be done, regardless. Lannister Corp above all else—that is what Tywin Lannister always expected of his three children. Their immense wealth, their status, their privilege, that had all been handed to them. But they have always been expected to _work_. To excel at it.

In King’s Landing, it hadn’t been rare for Jaime to find himself in the office till eleven at night, or twelve, or one. He’d be there until whatever needed to get done got done, even while the letters on the page or screen swam and flipped before his eyes, more vigorously by the second. He’d spend evenings entertaining clients, weekends attending some event or conference or gala on behalf of the company. His holidays—well, if he went on vacation with his family, that was work enough in itself, even if it was just with Cersei, or with Tyrion. And that was besides the fact that the first thing he did in the morning, and the last thing he did at night, was reply to his work emails.

For all of the Lannisters—Tywin and his children, even his siblings and their children—this was just their way of life. Lannister Corp above all else.

There’s less to do in the Stormlands now—definitely less of the socialising, at least—but Jaime still does his work, and does it well. It’s what has always been expected of him, as a Lannister, even if he’s a Lannister who’s displaced himself from King’s Landing. In fact, he almost feels compelled to work even harder now, and with more focus, as if to prove that he didn’t come here to the Stormlands to work _less_. He doesn’t want control of the company, doesn’t want the power or responsibility that comes with it. But he’s not making that decision out of laziness or incompetence. If he works, then he is still _good_. He is still worth something. It’s the only way he’s known how to be worth something, in the eyes of his family.

So the first night he had made Brienne wait for him, Jaime didn’t think it would gnaw at him that much. He’s so used to it, the constant work. When he left the office, it wasn’t even _that_ late, only eight-thirty—alright, eight_ forty-five_ by the time he and Brienne sat down to dinner at his apartment. Still, Brienne herself must work later than that some days. She understands what it’s like, working for a company like Lannister Corp. What it’s like to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at your office desk.

But for the next two days, Jaime couldn’t stop thinking about it—how Brienne had waited for him for almost three hours. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it was three hours he could have spent with her, even if it would have been in a cinema in the middle of nowhere, with both of them wearing trench coats and wigs and oversized glasses to avoid being recognised. And that was just one evening, not even three hours past the time she usually leaves work. How about those days he wants to see her—which is _every single day_—then finds he has to work till eleven at night, or twelve, or one? What happens then?

As far as Jaime was concerned, there was only one solution. Not to _stop_ working, no, he couldn’t possibly do _that_. He’d simply have to work somewhere where he could still spend time with Brienne—even if it was a matter of just being _beside_ her, while he worked. And it couldn’t be in the office, especially not before that two-month mark. In the office, there was never any logical reason for them to be in the same room.

(Well, there would be if people knew they were dating. But they don’t. They’re not supposed to for a few more weeks, at least.)

And so, Jaime began taking his work home, whenever he couldn’t finish what he needed to do by six in the evening. He always leaves the office at six now—okay, sometimes six-_thirty_—except maybe on Mondays, when Brienne goes to the gym on her own. If he has work to do, then Brienne would spend the evening at his, at least until she needed to catch the train home—although she did hesitantly ask if she could leave a change of clothes at his apartment, just in case she ever had to stay over on a work night. (The answer was ‘yes’, of course.) For dinner, they’d get food delivered, or she would cook, or he would, if he needed a break and could afford one. Brienne often had work to do, too, and she’d sit opposite him at the dining table, her laptop across from his. In their silent concentration, the tapping of fingers on keyboards became its own form of dialogue.

This was the solution Jaime had settled on for now. If he had to be honest, though, it could get distracting, having her right there. Jaime found something quite mesmerising about Brienne looking all serious, although she had laughed in disbelief when he told her so. But it’s also kind of _nice_—not just that she _looks_ serious when she’s working, but that she _takes her work seriously_, in a way that feels qualitatively different from him, different from his family. Brienne doesn’t do it for power or recognition; she doesn’t do it because it’s Lannister Corp above all else. She was simply hired to do a job, and so she does it as well as she possibly can, which also happens to be better than is expected of her.

Naturally, they’d taken to discussing their work with each other, though Jaime often has to speak in vague terms or hypotheticals, tied up as his work usually is in some yet-to-be-made decision or other. Brienne asks him for his opinion on her own projects too, even argues with him about the best course of action. To her, the ‘best course of action’ is often the most _ethical _approach—whatever would benefit more people, and benefit them in the right way; or conversely, whatever hurt less for the least number of people. Jaime laughed at first—she is working for the largest, most profit-driven corporation in Westeros, and she wants to be _ethical_, of all things? But Brienne always tries, anyway, even though she is far from being in a position high enough to really have much of an influence. She just has this—this boundless urge to at least _try _to do the right thing.

(Jaime doesn’t think Brienne belongs in Lannister Corp, not forever. But for now, this is where she is, and where she’s planning to stay for at least a couple more years. He wouldn’t have met her otherwise, and he’s so very glad for it.)

They’re spending one of these evenings together now, two laptops at his dining table, empty takeout boxes stacked in the corner. He’s almost done—just looking over his notes for a breakfast meeting one final time—when he hears Brienne call his name.

“Jaime.”

“Hmm?” he replies, without looking up.

There’s a few seconds of silence, then— “Nothing.”

He lifts his head to see her staring at her own laptop intently. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. I’m just—” She meets his eyes for a second, then turns back to her laptop. “Never mind. Go back to work.”

“I’m pretty much done.” Jaime leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “And it’s not _nothing_ if you keep starting sentences without finishing them.”

“Okay then,” Brienne sighs, and closes her laptop. “We’re… together, right?”

Jaime feels his lips curling into a smile. “In the same plane of existence?” he says, offhandedly. “I would say so, or this is a very realistic dream.”

Brienne rolls her eyes, nudges his leg under the table with her foot. “You know what I mean. We’re together… exclusively. Right?”

“Yes, I believe we are. Unless you’ve been seeing other people.” He doesn’t _actually_ think that she’s been doing that, but since they’re on the topic, he might as well check.

“Oh, like I have options,” Brienne snorts.

Well, that wasn’t the response he expected. “So you _would_ see other people if you had options?”

She looks at him, eyes wide in alarm. “No! I didn’t mean—would _you_?”

“No!” He nudges her leg with his foot now. “I’m with you, you know that.”

“I know. And I’m with you.” Brienne stands up out of her chair and grabs the takeout boxes. “Okay then. Just checking.” She walks towards his kitchen.

“That’s it?” he asks, from the dining table.

“That’s it,” she replies, and throws the boxes in the bin. “Just thought I’d check.”

Jaime leans forward, puts one elbow on the table so he can prop his chin up. “Huh.”

She looks over at him. “What?”

“You usually…” Jaime waves his hand in the air. “You know. Get in your own head about these things.”

“I do,” Brienne replies, and immediately turns to the sink to wash her hands.

He feels a smile coming on again, thinks of all the times over the past few days that he’s caught her looking at him oddly. Once she shuts off the tap, he says: “You’ve been trying to ask me that all week, haven’t you?”

She heaves a sigh, and leans against the counter. “I might have.”

“You thought I wouldn’t say yes?”

“No—it’s not that. I just felt like it was almost—unfair for me to ask. Since I was the one who wanted to keep this quiet.”

Jaime shrugs. “I agreed to the two months. It hasn’t been so bad.” Just three-and-a-half weeks left, if they’re counting from their first date.

“Still.” Brienne walks back over to him. “I know… you’d rather not.”

“Well.” He _would_ rather not, but there’s really not much more to say on the subject. He closes his own laptop and smiles up at her. “At least now I have confirmed my suspicions that I’m indeed in a monogamous relationship with Brienne Tarth.”

She giggles, a lovely sound. “I had similar suspicions about you, Jaime Lannister.” She comes to stand behind his chair and slips her hands over his shoulders, kneads her fingers into the knots there.

“And I suppose my brother did tell me that clarity is key,” Jaime muses.

Brienne’s fingers pause. “Your brother knows about us?”

_Oh, right._ Jaime never got around to telling her about Tyrion’s visit. “I may have—remember that Saturday that I said I was with a client? Before our first date?”

“… Oh.”

“Yeah.” He tilts his head up to find her gazing down at him. “My father sent him to convince me to return to King’s Landing, not that Tyrion bothered with that.” He leans back, so that the top of his head touches her stomach. “Anyway, I might have told him that there was a reason why I wanted to stay here. In the Stormlands, specifically. He gave me some good advice.” _Aside from the part about eloping, obviously._

Brienne looks utterly bewildered. “_I’m _the reason you want to stay?”

Jaime laughs. “If you haven’t noticed, Brienne, we’ve been spending basically all our time together for the past month. You’ve been a very effective incentive, I’d say.”

She removes her hands from his shoulders and sits herself in the chair beside him. “We’ve seen each other a lot, haven’t we?” she says, thoughtfully. “Marg says it’s a _lot_.”

“Is it?” He reaches over to grasp one of her hands. “Aren’t we just… spending time with each other because we want to?”

“I suppose. I’ve never—experienced this before. I don’t know what’s normal.”

“Me neither,” Jaime replies, without even thinking.

Brienne whips her head towards him. “What do you mean, _me neither_? Haven’t you dated before?”

“I… have. I just—I haven’t dated in the _normal_ way.” _Oh gods, here we go._ “My sister… she’d arrange for me to—to date women she thought were _appropriate_. I guess it started back when we were still in school. She’d say, _Jaime, wouldn’t you look good with so-and-so?_ And she’d set it up, and I’d say yes because… I don’t know why. Because I believed her, or wanted to please her. It was almost like—I felt like I had to be on the same page as her. And then it just kept happening—not that there were a lot of women. But each time it happened, I’d go through the motions, break it off eventually, sooner rather than later. I don’t even know if you could call any of them _relationships_, really.”

Jaime wills himself to look into Brienne’s eyes, steels himself for her judgment, finds nothing there but kindness. “I suppose… I fell into a pattern. And I didn’t know how to break out of that pattern.” He holds up their hands, just a little, nudges them towards Brienne. “Never met anyone that made me want to do that.”

Brienne gives him a smile; something quiet, nervous. “That’s… good to know.” Jaime feels her grip his hand a little tighter. “Will you tell me more about them?” she asks. “Your family?”

“I will. Eventually.” He’s given her bits and pieces over the past few weeks, but there’s always this lump in his throat that prevents him from telling her anything quite so substantial. “Not now. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay.”

They sit there in silence for a few more breaths. Then, Brienne says: “Speaking of—of patterns. I’ve been thinking about that. About us.”

Jaime shifts his chair a little towards her. “What about us?”

“I mean… When you stayed over the first time, I offered you the couch. Then I stayed over here, and I slept on the couch. And the other times since—that’s what we’ve done.” She clasps her free hand around his wrist. “I’m just wondering—we see each other so often—maybe we should… break the pattern.”

“Oh—”

“I’m not—I’m still not ready for—”

“I know.”

“But—I don’t want you to think I’d want to keep things this way, or anything like that. I just need to—work up to it. And I’d be… I’m okay with not doing the couch thing anymore.”

Jaime tries his best to stay calm. “Alright. Good.” _Really good._ “Will you—not do the couch thing tonight?”

Brienne reddens. “… I could.”

Jaime stands up then, a bit too abruptly, and he sees Brienne jerk back a little. “Well. I think you’ll find that my bed is very large and very comfortable.” He motions their hands towards the direction of his bedroom. “I’m sure it’d be very happy to accommodate us both.”

“Jaime,” she laughs, still seated in her chair, “it’s barely nine. We can’t go to bed _now_.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think my body remembers how to fall asleep before eleven.”

“I didn’t say we had to _sleep_.”

Jaime sees Brienne stiffen at that, and he thinks that he’ll need to ask her to tell him more about her past too. “I don’t mean—not that,” he scrambles. “We can… talk. Or, you know. The stuff we’ve already done.”

_Stuff._ It’s a juvenile word, and he can imagine Tyrion giving him a look. But he supposes what they’ve done so far has been—innocent, in relative terms. Just kissing. And touching. And looking. It’s chaste, compared to—but it’s also _not_. Not in the way his lips travel down her neck, the way her hands slip beneath his shirt, the way their exhalations mingle. It’s all he can think of right now, all he wants to do for the rest of the evening. Especially if they finally get to do all that in his _bed_, and then stay there after.

Especially if he gets to wake up beside Brienne in the morning, and do that _stuff_ all over again.

So Jaime tugs on her hand, in the direction of the bedroom. Brienne stands slowly, and he searches her face, her body for any sign of reluctance. She’s tentative, but no, he doesn’t think it’s reluctance. At most, it’s an anticipation that she’s taught herself to suppress. She does that thing she likes—wraps her hand around his forearm—which is always a good sign, from what he’s gathered.

Then, for the first time in four-and-a-half weeks, Brienne follows him to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brand new chapter tomorrow :)


	10. A woman shares a bed with a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And… this is the chapter where the title really takes on a whole new meaning. The “Eventual Smut” has arrived.

One thing inevitably leads to another.

Brienne would do well to remember that, particularly when the ‘one thing’ in question is sharing a bed with Jaime.

She thought it’d be _fine_. Not a huge leap at all. They were simply switching the location—couches to beds—for activities in which they were already engaging, and then staying in that new location for a much longer time after. And it _was_ fine, the first few times. It took some getting used to, having another person in bed, especially someone almost of a size with her. And Brienne hadn’t been conscious of how much she _sprawled_ in her sleep until she woke up the morning after the first night, to find herself taking up much more of the bed than was really fair to Jaime. Nonetheless, she discovered that she relished entangling her limbs with his, and going to sleep that way, even if they woke up in an entirely different formation.

When they weren’t sleeping, they talked, and they held each other, and they kissed. She might have allowed Jaime’s hands some access beneath her shirt—just as he would have allowed her hands access beneath _his_ shirt, if he hadn’t started making a habit of not wearing one. But all of this—it was just more of the same of what they had been doing for weeks already. It was merely that the setting for these activities had more… surface area. And they didn’t need to leave that surface area till morning.

In Brienne’s head, she had—well, not a fixed timeline per se, but still a kind of amorphous schedule for when they could traverse each boundary she had set, with regard to how they shared their bodies. And Jaime never crossed those boundaries, not unless she allowed him to do so. Yet, she had to concede that once they began sharing their beds—began interlacing their bodies for much longer periods of time—it became far more difficult to ignore exactly how much Jaime, or certain parts of Jaime’s body, might have wanted to… move things along. And it was definitely impossible to ignore how he had to leave the bed on one occasion, in order to take care of said parts in the bathroom. As she lay in bed then, Brienne found that while she could pretend not to hear his muffled groans through the door—by tucking a pillow firmly around her ears—she could no longer pretend the sensations between her legs didn’t exist. Sensations that were growing more familiar each day.

Besides that—it was fine, sharing a bed with Jaime.

It was just a change in location and duration, wasn’t it?

And then—then it wasn’t fine.

It wasn’t _just_ fine.

It became _more than_ fine.

Because one night—their seventh night together, and the third in her bed—Jaime’s hand might have wandered a little further below her waistband than usual. And Brienne might have found that she didn’t mind, wouldn’t mind if it went even further, went past the second waistband underneath. Her own hand might have accidentally brushed over the area just south of his waistband too, causing Jaime to hiss in response. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the first time it had happened while his hand was making its way to a place she had never before given it permission to go. It made Brienne realise she was being possessed by a feeling that could only be described, paradoxically, as something caught between generosity and greed. And so her fingers had reached tentatively beneath the elastic, to where the tautness of the skin of his abdomen morphed into tenderness—

Then Jaime caught her wrist.

“Don’t,” he warned. Brienne had emitted a soft whimper to mourn the retraction of his hand, and a corner of his mouth turned upward.

“Why not?” she whispered back. “You don’t want me to?”

“I do—I _really_ do—but you first,” he murmured in reply. “I want to be able to… concentrate.”

Before Brienne could even begin to blush at being the object of Jaime’s concentration, she felt his hand searching beneath her waistband again. Her waistband_s_. His fingers arrived—too soon, not soon enough—at the wetness that was already there, already waiting for him, and he couldn’t help but smirk at her, and so Brienne couldn’t help but wipe that smirk off his lips with a kiss. But she parted her legs anyway, gave his fingers space to explore, and he was so _slow_ about it, teasing her folds, that she whimpered again, whimpered into his lips at this most exquisite torture. Or what she _thought_ was most exquisite, until his fingers located the knot of flesh that she always knew was there, but never quite knew what to do with, at least not very well. But Jaime knew, or knew enough, because he was circling that slowly as well, and she had to break from his lips to gasp.

“You’ll have to tell me what you like,” he took the chance to say. “I’m not—I haven’t—” _Not that there were a lot of women_, she remembered him saying. He settled on: “Some guidance would be good.”

Whatever Jaime had or hadn’t done, it was still more than anything Brienne had ever received in her life. “I won’t know what I’ll like until you do it,” she replied, honestly.

“Guess we’ll have to experiment, then.”

“Guess so.”

They looked at each other for a while, the implications of those words suspended in their shared gaze. Brienne would have thought this moment ridiculous—Jaime’s hand was still on her—if she hadn’t been otherwise overwhelmed by a sense of earnest curiosity. She could have sworn that she heard the same curiosity in his voice.

“Maybe—you could turn your back to me,” Jaime suggested.

“Then I won’t be able to kiss you.”

“I’ll take care of the kissing.”

So Brienne turned away from him, her body rotating beneath his arm, even while Jaime’s hand stayed exactly where it was. And in the same electrifying second that his lips touched her neck, his fingers began circling her bud again, faster and with more pressure, and it felt as if every part of her body that could possibly arch into him was doing just that. Jaime slipped his other arm under her, across her torso, pushed the fabric of her shirt up as far as it would go, cupped one breast in his hand and took her nipple between his fingers. With Jaime’s lips, Jaime’s _fingers_ on all the most sensitive parts of her body, it was a wonder she had the presence of mind to reach up to her other breast, knead her own flesh in time with his movements.

Soon, the hand in her shorts—hells, she was still half-wearing them—began moving deeper, lower, _under her_, and then Jaime was curling a finger into her entrance, in and out and in again, with his palm just skimming over the rest of her, its heel occasionally pushing back into her clit. This touch was frustratingly _irregular_, and yet somehow made all the better by that intermittent and unpredictable deprivation. His lips were still on her neck, at the juncture between her neck and her shoulder, and she felt his _tongue_ and the scrape of his teeth, and her free hand couldn’t possibly grip her sheets any harder. Was she even breathing? She must be, she could hear herself, her moans, and her lungs were swelling inside her chest, but she thought it must not be with air but with—sheer _pleasure_, pleasure that was so much better for being bestowed upon her by _Jaime_.

His fingers were moving even more swiftly now, entering her just so, sliding back up her seam again, sliding back down. Brienne grasped Jaime’s wrists, both of them, ground her body back into him, and in that instant she could feel exactly how much he had hardened even just compared to a few minutes ago. When she recalled this whole experience later, she would realise that _this_—this proof of his desire _for her_—this was what sent her over the edge, made her cry out his name, made everything go white.

Gradually, Brienne felt her vision—her limbs—return to her; felt the body she had inhabited for twenty-five years become something recognisable again. As she adjusted her shirt absently, she was suddenly aware that she wasn’t lying beside Jaime any longer, but half on top of him, and then she was even more aware that this position—him supporting half her weight—didn’t bother her as much as she expected. She rolled off him, buried her face in a pillow, and gave in to the temptation to—to _laugh_.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, and there was a tinge of confusion in his voice, a soft plea for her approval.

She turned her head towards him, let her cheek rest on the pillow while she caressed his jaw. What could she tell him? That she laughed because he made her feel—weightless? It sounded nonsensical in her head already. So instead she said, “Nothing. It was—it was good. Really good. Thank you.”

Jaime smiled back at her, pleased.

When her breaths had scarcely evened out, Brienne turned to face him fully. She reached her own hand into his pants with more haste than she intended, desperate to get started before her courage all but disappeared. Jaime jolted back slightly before she could even get a grip on him.

“Sorry—I was—” _Impatient. Eager. Scared. _She didn’t know which word to pick. She was all of those things.

“That’s okay,” Jaime assured her. He stuck his thumbs in his waistband, and was about to pull his pants down, when he looked at her and asked, “Is this alright? Just—it’s easier.”

Brienne nodded in response—she’d caught glimpses of his cock already, in the past few weeks—though as he freed himself, it struck her, first, that she had never seen it _hard_, and second, that he hadn’t even seen _her_ yet, not all of her, and definitely not down there. In fact, they hadn’t seen each other in entirety, not even in the dim glow of her bedside lamp. But Jaime was kicking off his pants by this point, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt in the first place, and here she was still pretty much clothed, though her own shirt was riding up again. She could feel the dampness of her underwear, perhaps even her shorts over that, and she’d have to change both later, but right then, she couldn’t quite bring herself to bare anything else. She’d bared so much already, just in allowing Jaime to do what he had done.

Jaime didn’t ask her for anything, of course, didn’t know what thoughts were running through her head. He only waited. She wondered if he might want her to look at him, all of him, do so appreciatively, but she found that she couldn’t. There was a tension in her body at just the _thought_ of doing that. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around his cock, then looked him in the eye—that, she could do confidently—watched him as his eyelids fluttered, his head tipped back, his mouth dropped open just so, all in time with her strokes. Soft first, gentle, slow, steady, and then he began to utter instructions to her, and Brienne could do that, she could follow instructions, she could go a bit faster, squeeze a little harder, _like this?_ she’d ask, and he’d nod if he could. She’d never been any good at improvising in any context, but she knew Jaime would never judge her if she did, and she would certainly never do anything to hurt him, so she allowed herself to explore, to _experiment_, just like they’d agreed. She allowed herself to move her fingers along the shaft, tip, base; with one hand, with the other, with both. She allowed herself to listen to Jaime’s breathing—_listen, really listen_, she had told him once—and she took heed of when it quickened, when the air caught in his throat, when he couldn’t help but moan, when her name burst forth from his lips.

_Her name._

And then he was spilling onto her hand, onto his belly. She didn’t know what to do then, if she should let go, so she tended his cock even as it softened, tried to remember what it felt like just before he reached his peak. Jaime started chuckling through his slowing breaths, just as she had laughed into her pillow before, and she didn’t have to ask him _what’s so funny_, because she knew. She already knew.

They made their way to the bathroom after. It was only then, as she watched Jaime walk through her apartment fully nude, that Brienne’s body thought it would be an opportune moment to complete every single arrested blush of the evening. She saw the blotchiness of her skin in the bathroom mirror as she stood behind Jaime, whose own skin was perfect and golden as always. He didn’t look at their reflections, didn’t meet her eyes in the mirror, preoccupied as he was with cleaning himself. She faced her back to him, took off her shorts and her underwear, pulled on clean pairs of both. By the time she turned towards him again, he was already done, already leaning against the sink, already watching her.

“Was that—” he began.

“Yes,” she replied immediately, though his two words could have been the start of any number of questions.

And then Jaime laughed again, and rubbed the back of his head. Brienne went to him, put her arms around his waist, and buried her face in his neck. They stood there like that for a long while.

Later, when they were back in her bed, Jaime held firmly onto her. He had joked once that it was in fear of being pushed off in the middle of the night, but Brienne knew better than to think that was the whole truth.

“Next Monday—” she said, before they could drift off to sleep. “It’ll be two months, more or less.”

“Hmm,” was all he said. Yet Brienne could hear his anticipation even in that one syllable.

“Everyone will know soon enough,” she sighed.

Jaime ran his fingers along her arm. “How are you feeling about that?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I wish we were the only two people that existed in this world.” It was a petulant thought, an improbable one, but there was truth in it for her.

“I know.”

Brienne turned into him. “I was thinking—before whatever happens, happens,” she said into his chest. “If you might want to… spend the weekend with me.”

“Like we do already?” he asked, puzzled. “Do you want to go somewhere, or…?”

“No. Nothing like that. I mean—” She gripped her hand a little tighter around his ribs. “We could spend the weekend… in your apartment.”

“The whole weekend?”

“Yes. Just the two of us.”

It was then that Jaime started to realise exactly what she was talking about. “Two of us… and the bed?”

“And the bed.”

And that is how one thing led to another, and another, and another. That is why Brienne is currently standing in Jaime’s living room, on this Friday evening, with no plans to leave for the next two-and-a-half days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know many of you have been waiting ages for some new material and I hope it lived up to your expectations! This is really just the taster for tomorrow's incredibly long chapter :)


	11. A woman and a man enjoy a weekend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you briefly saw this chapter and it disappeared, I screwed up the posting date so I deleted and reposted it. ANYWAY. It’s HERE. An almost-8,000 word weekend sextravaganza. Have fun reading! (Also, I keep forgetting to thank my beta, the wonderful [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde)!)

** FRIDAY, 7:26 PM **

“I bought the condoms.”

Brienne almost spits out her dinner. Gods, did Jaime _have_ to say _that_ while she was in the middle of chewing?

She looks up to see that he’s pointing in the direction of his bedroom with his fork, so she turns around and—okay. She can see his bedside table through the doorway, and there’s far too many boxes stacked next to the lamp. She may not have done this before, but that really seems like far too many boxes. It can’t be—they can’t possibly—even if they—

In _two-and-half days_?

“O-okay,” she stammers, once she’s swallowed. “Thank you.” She looks back over her shoulder again, towards the stack of what she _hopes_ is far too many boxes. “We’re very… prepared.”

“I may have… I thought I might as well stock up,” Jaime explains. “You could take a couple boxes back to yours.”

_Oh, thank the Seven. _There’s a faint tremor in his voice, but no hint of expectation. Brienne releases a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

She turns back to him. “I’m on the pill, by the way. Not that we shouldn’t still… be safe. Just thought you should know.”

“Oh.” Jaime bites his lip—he doesn’t do that often—as he twirls his fork between his fingers.

“You’re… surprised?” Brienne asks.

“No!” Jaime scoffs, too quickly, then wrinkles his nose. “Maybe. I just… Up until a week ago, I wasn’t sure when this was going to happen.”

“Oh. Um. Marg suggested it. I’ve been on it since the second week, actually.”

Jaime’s eyes widen at that, which prompts Brienne to snap her gaze down to her dinner. And then all these words just _pour out of her_.

“Not that I wanted to presume anything was going to happen between us at the time, and it wasn’t like I was ready or had any idea _when_ I would be ready, but—”

“No—” he cuts her off, and she’s relieved rather than annoyed by the intervention. “That’s. That’s good. It’s good to be prepared.”

Jaime taps his fork on the edge of his plate. _Hells_, Brienne thinks,_ this is even more awkward than our first date._

“I’m full—” she blurts out, just as he says, “I’m not that hungry.”

Half of their meal is still uneaten.

“I’ll… We can keep the food for later?” Brienne suggests.

_Later. After._

“Yes. Okay.”

Jaime stands up and grabs both their plates, brings them to the kitchen counter. Brienne stands up herself, follows him, and watches as he sets the plates down. He stares at them for a few seconds, pondering something. Then, he opens a cupboard to take out a couple of containers, scrapes the food into them, and puts them in the fridge. As if he expects it’ll be quite a while before they’ll get back to eating again.

“We can warm it up later,” he says, as he closes the fridge door.

_Later. After._

Brienne nods, and brings the dirty dishes to the sink. Jaime has a dishwasher, but she’s used to doing it by hand. That’s what she’s telling herself anyway, as she scrubs each item thoroughly with the sponge, instead of admitting that she’s just trying to buy herself some time.

“Do you not want to do this?” she hears Jaime ask from behind her.

“No—I, I do. I’m ready.” She stacks the plates on the drying rack and turns to him, forces herself to look him in the eye. “I’m nervous, that’s all.”

“We can take it slow.”

“That’ll be good,” she agrees. Slow is good. Slow is safe. Slow is—it’s—

Gods, _why?_ She _wants_ him, doesn’t she? Why _slow_?

And before her mind can devise an utterly rational answer to that question, Brienne’s lips are on his; Jaime only gives a short grunt of surprise before he relaxes and opens his mouth to hers. Then she’s pushing him into the counter and trying to unbutton his shirt at the same time, and he’s fumbling for her collar but they _can’t_, they can’t do this while their lips are connected, they have to break from each other to undress and Gods, _why?_ Then they’re laughing—_laughing_, when just a few minutes ago they were stumbling through a conversation about _contraception_—and they’re trying to get each other’s clothes off, and they’re failing because their arms are all intertwined between their chests, and then Jaime’s just given up on her blouse and gone straight for her pants, which is good because now she can work on his buttons _properly_, but before she knows it Jaime has his fingers in her waistband and he’s pulling _all of it_ down and saying “Get up,” and—when did she end up with her back to the counter?—it doesn’t matter, because Brienne doesn’t have any idea what _get up _means, so she just says, “What?” and Jaime says “Get up on the counter,” and she wants to ask why but then he just—he _lifts her_, she didn’t think he could _lift her_, even just that little bit off the ground, and now he’s yanking her pants down, and her underwear, and he hasn’t even bothered to get them off her ankles when he kneels down and pushes her legs as far apart as they can go while her pants are _still around her ankles_ and she barely has time to think about how he’s _seeing that part of her for the first time and it’s in his damn kitchen_ when he leans towards her and—

_Fuck._

_Oh, fuck._

Fuck everything except the fact that Jaime has his _mouth on her_ and Brienne can’t help but jerk forward and she has to grab onto the edge of the counter for fear of falling _on top of him_, and he’s still pushing her thighs apart and trying to keep her steady but she _can’t_, she can’t stay still when he has his _mouth on her_, and her damn pants are still around her ankles and she calls out his name and he just ignores her, so she has to push his head back from her and he looks at her in alarm and asks, “Do you not want—” and of course she _does_, especially now that she _knows how it feels_, but she points down at her ankles and says “Pants,” and he _growls_, and she would laugh at him if he wasn’t already freeing her feet from all that cloth and now she can stretch her legs even wider apart and Jaime’s tongue is on her again, _in her, Gods, every single one of them except maybe the Maiden_, and his thumb is massaging into her flesh right above where his tongue is, and there are sounds coming out of her that she’d be ashamed of at any other time, but all she cares about right now is hooking her legs around him and pulling him into her, and time—

—time seems to have slowed down—no, sped up—no, _disappeared entirely_—and the only way to keep time is _Jaime. _Twelve, or fifty-seven, or a hundred and nine Jaimes later Brienne is almost there, she can feel it, and oh, she’s _already there_, she must be, and Jaime must have been able to feel her peak because it felt like every single muscle in her body was telling her it was happening, so he must have known, but he just _keeps going_, continues even more fervently, and she’s certainly not going to stop him but _why?_—and then she finds out soon enough because just a few moments later she can feel it happening _again_. It’s not as strong as the first, but it’s sweeter for coming so soon after, and it’s only when the rhythm of her breaths starts to stabilise that Jaime leans back from her and wraps his hands around her shins and—and just _grins_ up at her, _damn him. _

_Damn Jaime Lannister and his mouth._

She never wants to let him go.

“You’re definitely ready now,” he remarks, and licks his lips, all proud of himself. Brienne would roll her eyes at him if she wasn’t so deeply, embarrassingly, genuinely _grateful_.

** FRIDAY, 8:15 PM **

Something about this feels like a first time, Jaime thinks, as he sits cross-legged on one side of his bed.

It’ll be his first time with Brienne, of course, and it’ll be her first time ever. But something about this feels like a first-time-ever _for him_.

He’s not sure why. But he’s far too busy right now to think about that.

He’s far too busy taking in the sight of Brienne, lying next to him, without a stitch on her.

“This is a little bit unsettling, Jaime,” she says, looking up at him.

“What is?” he asks, as his eyes trace their way down the slight curves of her breasts, her waist, her hips, her thighs. All of Brienne’s curves are slight; subtle. He admires the straight lines of her body too, their strength, but there’s something so rewarding about discovering her curves. It’s a puzzle. A _privilege_. And she offers it only to him.

“You’re just… sitting there. In silence.” She flips onto her side, facing towards him. “Looking at me. While you’re naked.”

“_You’re_ naked,” he repeats, childishly, a useless taunt.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Wow, I hadn’t noticed.”

She’s being sarcastic, obviously. But Jaime knows she _had_ noticed, noticed much more than just the bare fact of it. He knows she felt it deep in her core, her nakedness. When she’d finally shrugged out of her blouse, and the simple skin-coloured bra she wore underneath, there had been a stiffness to her frame, the whisper of a grimace on her face. Jaime thought, at first, that it was some sort of bashfulness—which would have been odd considering what he’d just done to her in his kitchen, and the abandon with which she had accepted his efforts. But as she lay herself on the bed, revealed everything to his gaze, he realises that Brienne wasn’t feeling _shy_, so much as… he thought perhaps it might best be described simply as a _discomfort_. Like she wasn’t quite at home in her own body.

He can’t claim to understand this at all, and he won’t try to. He can only fix her with his gaze, memorise the lines of her body, locate patterns and shapes in her freckles. He can only touch her, and he does this now, runs a finger down her arm. When she pulls that arm into her chest, skittish, and opens her mouth as if to comment again on how _unsettling_ this is, he merely continues down her ribs, her waist, her hip, her thigh. Brienne says nothing in the end, lets him find those slight curves again with his fingertip, lets him leave a trail of goosebumps in its wake. There’s a rigidity about her again, a protective shell, but she is _flesh_, he can feel that truth beneath his finger. She can’t fight that.

He brings his hand back up to her chest, coaxes her arm away, coaxes her onto her back again. He follows the faint outline beneath each breast, resists the urge to smirk when he sees her nipples harden just a bit more, strain against themselves. And then he’s bending towards her, he’s on his knees before her, _over_ her, planting his elbows on either side of her, and he takes one nipple into his mouth and Brienne makes a sound that is half a whine and half a sigh, and now he’s mapping her not with his eyes or his finger but with his tongue, tracing this small part of her that is _all of her_ at the same time, drawing it into his mouth, taking it gently between his teeth and releasing it. He keeps this going until he feels Brienne’s palm on his cheek, pushing him away—no, not _away_, but to her other breast, and he’s happy to oblige.

Soon, sated or perhaps hungry for more, she’s bringing his face back up to her own, kissing him on his lips, winding her fingers around his jaw, his ears, his neck, his shoulders, and oh, they’ve done this before, it feels like they haven’t stopped doing this for two months straight, and yet it _feels like a first time_. There is nothing between them now, there is only his skin on hers, his leg between hers—he can feel the slickness at the juncture of her thighs—his arm curling around her torso, his hand resting beneath a shoulder blade. Brienne reaches down between them, even while she arches her neck to his lips, and she feels for his cock, finds it eventually. He was half-hard already from the kitchen, a quarter more from just touching her, and it’s her turn to coax his body now, make it ready for her.

Jaime stops her hand after a while, reaches for one of the packets they’ve already laid out on his bedside table, opens it and removes the condom from inside. Brienne takes the empty packet from his fingers as he slips the latex on himself, rolls it down. He shares a look with her, asks a question with it, receives an answer. He positions himself between her legs, and she widens them just a little more, and though she is on her back, he has the bizarre thought that they are two warriors adjusting their stances before a duel. But if it is a duel, then it is a tender one. He charts her folds and seam with the tip of his cock, brushes over her, sends shivers through her, does everything but enter her until he _does_—

and she bites her lip.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, pausing, and she responds not with words but by reaching up with both her hands, around his waist and down, pulling him deeper into her, into her warmth, and that’s not an answer in itself but it’s a way forward, and then he withdraws—feels the loss of her—and pushes in again. Her hips lift towards his own involuntarily; there is no intent behind the movement, just instinct, just _want_, and he thinks of how their heads collided when they first tried to kiss and he _smiles_. He considers—though perhaps not in the following words—that a synchronicity that is _earned_ can feel as good—_better_—than one that is seemingly innate. So he shifts back, puts his hands on her hips, guides her undulations in time with his thrusts. He guides, but he won’t claim to _teach_ her. He is learning too, learning how to move while he is inside her, while she is around him. _It feels like a first time._

Then she’s lifting her arms up to him, drawing him back towards her, and he moves a hand to the crook of her knee, bends it along with him, and something in their joining shifts just enough to make a word catch in Brienne’s throat, a whispered and incomplete _fuck_. He would gladly bring his face right up to hers, is tempted to do so, to lose himself in her eyes, but he is just so _fascinated_ by all the sounds she is currently making. So he puts his ear to her cheek instead, to her neck, _listens_, listens to the way her moans alternate and harmonise with his.

When he is close enough, he tells her so, and when she grips his arm in response there is something frenetic in it, like she’s close too, but not _enough_. He can just barely remind her that she is free to _touch herself_; he forces himself to slow his thrusts just a little so her fingers can find their rhythm and _ah_, he’s there, he can’t wait for her, he groans into her neck, but he doesn’t stop, won’t stop until the last possible moment, though his thrusts have lost all semblance of regularity. He feels her fingers move desperately between them, still searching, and he lowers his head to a breast and closes his lips firmly around a nipple, and that is enough, she’s through, she’s at the crest, riding it, and he can _feel it around him_, and—_it feels like a first time_.

He’ll think on that, later, if he cares to; think about what made it so different, so new. But now is not the time for thinking. Now, _after_, is for sharing skin with Brienne, their bodies something continuous, unending in this bed. Now is for sharing breath. It is for inhale meeting exhale; pulse matching pulse. It is for letting everything slow, and steady, and soothe.

This is new, too—waxing, then waning, together.

** SATURDAY, 4:34 AM **

When Brienne next opens her eyes to the darkness of Jaime’s bedroom, the first thing that comes to mind is: she is _famished_. Her stomach rumbles in agreement, reminds her of her half-eaten dinner. She untangles herself from Jaime, who is still sound asleep beside her.

Sound asleep, and _naked._

He’s naked.

She’s naked.

She’s no longer—

Three times over.

But there’s no time for all of that to sink in, because she is _famished_. There are two robes hanging on the back of the door, and she slips herself into one of them before making her way to the kitchen. She casts a glance at the section of the counter where she… sat, earlier that night. There is a faint tingle where her thighs meet. She ignores it, opens the fridge instead, takes out one of the containers Jaime stored in there.

That was almost nine hours ago. A lifetime.

She pours her food out onto a plate, and throws it in the microwave.

Just when the microwave beeps, Jaime steps out of the bedroom. He’s not naked, not now, but he’s just pulled on his briefs. Gods, they are _very_ snug. Brienne remembers that there was a _second robe _hanging on the back of the door that he could have used. Fine, it’s _his _apartment, he can do whatever he wants, and it’s not that he’s completely naked and it’s not that she is _complaining_, either, but—it’s still something to get used to.

“Had to use the bathroom,” he says, as he approaches.

She nods, and gestures her fork towards her leftovers. “I’m starving. You?”

“I’ll heat mine up.”

They stand there in the kitchen and eat in silence. Every so often Brienne would catch Jaime’s eye, and they’d smile at each other. It’s an act that already feels far too innocent given the events of the past nine hours. She tries her best not to look below his waist.

When they’re done, Brienne turns to him. “Back to bed?”

Jaime reaches over to the belt of her robe, winds it around his fingers. “Back to _sleep_?” Jaime asks, slowly. “Or back to _bed_?”

She steps towards the bedroom, and the knot of the strap loosens.

“Back to bed.”

** SATURDAY, 10:23 AM **

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Jaime declares, as he lets the eggs slide from the pan onto Brienne’s plate. “Having brunch?”

“You say that like we’ve never had brunch before,” she laughs, and takes a sip of her coffee.

“Well,” he continues, easing his own portion of eggs onto his plate, “we’ve never had brunch after you’ve been _thoroughly fucked_.”

He spies Brienne pretending to gag out of the corner of his eye. “Gross.”

“How is that _gross_?” He picks up a piece of bacon and takes a bite. “It’s the plain and simple truth. You’re so _immature_.”

Brienne reaches over and pinches the bacon from his fingers, the _thief._ “In my defence,” she says, waving the bacon at him, “I’m almost _nine years younger than you_. And I was a virgin up till very recently.”

Jaime leans over to kiss her before she can put _his_ bacon in her mouth. “You’re welcome, by the way,” and he plucks the strip back.

“You’re _insufferable_,” she mutters. Not even a word of appreciation. But that’s fine. He remembers exactly how appreciative she was last night. And this morning. The way she moaned his name—

“Stop that!” Brienne snaps, disrupting his very nice thoughts.

“Stop _what_?”

“You’re—you’re _thinking _about it!”

“How would you _know_?”

“I can tell!” Brienne insists, buttering her toast aggressively.

Jaime takes an equally aggressive bite out of his own toast, and gestures it towards her. “So what if I am?” he says, through a mouthful of bread.

“Can’t we have our brunch in peace?” she pleads. Her cheeks are _pink_.

_Oh, he knows what’s happening here_.

“You’re just mad because _you_ can’t stop thinking about it,” he smirks, and takes another bite out of his toast.

Brienne doesn’t reply. She just brings her mug to her lips.

** SATURDAY, 6:47 PM **

Brienne knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Jaime’s living room has an amazing view of the sunset. She knew this, but it was only less than an hour ago that she realised they’ve never actually taken advantage of this fact. Every time she’s been over at this time of the evening, they’ve always found themselves so caught up with dinner, or work, or whatever else that’s prevented them from just—sitting and watching it.

So this evening, they sit, and they watch. The sky is clear by Stormlands standards, its expanse dyed a brilliant gradient by the receding sun. There are a few clouds that have refused to disperse, but they catch rather than obstruct the sunlight. Their linings glow an intense orange, as do the glass-and-steel of the surrounding buildings, and the rooftops of the houses further in the distance.

Brienne observes every detail of this view, all the while conscious that Jaime is sinking further and further into her side, sliding down her chest, settling his head into her lap. He beams up at her boyishly when he’s comfortable, and she just laughs at him, at his face bathed in that orange light. She thinks this couch must be some small corner of paradise.

Well, a small _bubble_ of paradise_. _She knows this bubble will burst come Monday morning. But for now they get to sit in this bubble and watch the sunset. Or lie down, in Jaime’s case.

They didn’t do anything but laze and watch TV for most of today, which suited Brienne perfectly well after a long week. It's not as if she expected them to spend the _entire weekend_ in bed. She wasn’t sure what to expect at all, even though she had suggested this plan in the first place. She had very little clue about the realities of sex beyond the pure mechanics of it, despite Margaery’s best attempts at sharing unnecessarily detailed anecdotes.

In any case, Brienne was thankful to get a break from the bed, or rather the activities that happened in the bed, because she was feeling a bit _sore_ this morning. She did, however, pop to the gym for a light workout, while Jaime took a couple of hours in the afternoon to wrap up some work he needed done before Monday. He apologised, as he always does, and she assured him once again that she really doesn’t mind. Even if she _did_ mind something like that, she imagines Jaime would be eager to make up for it in other ways. And those _other ways_ have multiplied since last night.

“Hey,” Jaime says from her lap, and Brienne looks down from the setting sun. “Do you think we need a plan? For Monday?”

_The bubble will burst._

Truthfully, for the past few weeks, Brienne has been asking herself the same question. Or rather, for the past few weeks, she’s been _avoiding_ that question altogether. _Do we need a plan for Monday?_ She’s a planner, she _is_, but planning for Monday requires her to think about what Monday could bring. And she hasn’t really wanted to think about that at all.

“I don’t know,” she confesses. “I suppose we just… acknowledge each other. Properly. But not—not anything physical.”

“Of course.” Jaime tilts his head. “At least not during work hours.”

Brienne smacks him playfully, in part to get any ideas out of her _own_ head. “I suppose we can just interact without… so many _restrictions_.”

There was no more need for _dancing_.

He leans his cheek into her. “Does that mean we can go to lunch together?”

She smiles at his eagerness. “Yes, I suppose that’s okay.”

“And can I come get you at your desk?”

She strokes his hair as she considers this. “… Yes. Okay.”

“Or you can come meet me at my office if you prefer.”

“Either is fine.”

“And… will you tell me _why_ you’re so concerned?”

Brienne’s fingers pause in his hair.

Jaime looks away for a moment, as if considering the wisdom of asking her _this_, _now_, but then he meets her eyes again. “We’ve never really talked about that. And I don’t mean _what_ you think will happen. I mean—_why_ does it bother you so much? What people say?”

_I don’t want to talk about it_, she wants to reply. But she knows she has to, at some point. Here, now, in their soon-to-burst bubble bathed in orange light, she thinks perhaps there’s no better time than the present to give this part of herself to Jaime.

So she tells him, as much as she can manage, about how it was for her growing up. Why she knows that meadow back on Tarth so well, spent so much time in it alone. She tells him about looking the way she did, looking the way she _does_—though Jaime seems to hold back a response to her use of present tense—and how her appearance has always invited cruel words. Her father used to tell her, _words are wind, they cannot hurt you_, and she had repeated this mantra to herself far too often. Yet she felt the pain of words all the same, felt it worse because her father had said they weren’t supposed to hurt, and so it must have meant, somehow, that _she_ was at fault, _she _was the one who couldn’t let those words wash over her. Words like _Brienne the Beauty_, with its glaring falsehood used as a weapon against her, throughout her most vulnerable years. She felt its untruth to her very bones, to the very marrow of them.

(Jaime winces at this; remembers how he called her _Bridget the Beauty_. She finally tells him, after all this time, that she suspects she wouldn’t have punched him if he hadn’t called her _that_.)

Then it’s no longer about just what people _said_, but what people _did_, because everything is connected, isn’t it? And she finds that she can’t stop talking now that she’s started. She tells Jaime about the bet, about how in her last year of high school, Hyle Hunt, and Ben Bushy, and Edmund Ambrose had wooed her with flowers and gifts and pretty words—_words_, it’s always the _words_—and about how none of them succeeded in taking her to bed, but they had talked about her anyway, to anyone who would listen. They laughed at how she had _believed_ for even a moment that any of them might want her, laughed at her with those who would laugh along. And she thought it’d be done with when she went off to university, but then she had to see them there too, occasionally. While they had long left the bet behind them, and while she had punched at least one of them by then (a familiar strategy), that last year of high school still didn’t feel quite so distant for her, still _doesn’t_. And though she graduated with near-perfect grades, though she got a good job with good pay that she is also very good at, (though that job gave her the chance to meet Jaime,) sometimes these things don’t feel at all like victories, even small ones. It is then that Jaime reaches up to cup her cheek, and oh, she’s crying, she feels so _stupid_—

By the time she has no words left, the sun has long since disappeared below the horizon.

Jaime sits up from her lap. He kisses her in the dark, just kisses her, pushes her back into the couch with his lips. She tastes the salt of her tears on his tongue, and it is flavoured with the anger he feels on her behalf, his need to make it all go away for her, if only for a time. She doesn’t taste pity, or sympathy, and_ good_, she’s had enough of that. He is merely telling her, in not so many words—in no words at all—that she is not alone. She doesn’t have to be.

_She is not alone._

There are no words to describe how wonderful that feels.

** SUNDAY, 12:02 AM **

“Are you sure?”

“For fuck’s sake, Brienne,” Jaime groans, as he throws his head back and lets it hit the headboard. “If you ask me that question one more time—”

“This just seems—I don’t know.”

For the longest time, Brienne has been rooted to the same spot on the bed. She’s alternated between sitting and kneeling beside him, her body perpendicular to his outstretched legs. For most of that longest time, he absolutely did not mind, because she was in this position to—well, there’s no delicate way of saying _bent over him with his cock in her mouth_, so that’s what he’ll have to settle for. He _definitely_ did not mind that she took her sweet time with that. But now she’s taking her sweet time with actually swinging her damn legs over his damn hips and just _riding_ him, the infuriating woman. And she was the one who’d asked about it in the first place! Gods—he thinks his cock might be softening _already_, despite all of her ministrations. It is powerless in the face of her indecision.

“I swear to the fucking Seven, Brienne, it will be _fine_. Unless you’re suggesting I’m not _strong enough_ to take you.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Seven hells, you really _do_ think that.”

“It’s not _you_,” she scrambles, “it’s—”

Jaime has no patience to tend to his bruised ego, or her _lack of all good sense_. “Brienne,” he practically begs, “will you just get on top of me and _fuck_ me, damn it?”

“Jaime!” She jabs him in the ribs. “Don’t _rush_ me!”

“Do you _not_ want to try it? I thought you _wanted_ to try it!”

“I want to!”

“So what’s the problem? If you’re so worried about _crushing_ me then just put those core muscles to good use and _don’t_!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!” He looks pointedly down at his cock. “Come on then!”

And with an exasperated groan—a real positive start—Brienne _finally_ lifts one leg over his hips. When she sinks down on him, his only thought is _finally, finally_ he’s inside her after all of her dithering. He _knows_ she’s self-conscious but _Gods, he can take her_. He’s taking her right now. Her hands are gripping the headboard on either side of him, the muscles in her arms flexing, and she _seems_ to be finding her rhythm, but he can detect this _something_ in her body that still says that she’s _thinking, worrying_. This is not the time for either of those things. So he leans forward and captures a breast in his mouth, and he shoots a hand down between them and touches her where they are joined, and both of those things—one to combat _thinking_, the other for _worrying_—almost make her lose her balance, and one hand loses grip on the headboard and grabs his shoulder instead and _good, he can take her_. He releases her breast and rises up to find her lips, kisses her with all the strength he can muster because _he can take her_, he wants her to know that. And then both of her hands are on either side of his face—she’s given up on the headboard entirely now—and she is still kissing him, and her hips are rocking into his, and even though there’s still this _something_ in her movements that tells him that she’s unsure about this all, she is _really_ putting those core muscles to good use, _seven hells_.

It doesn’t take him that much longer, or her. But even after, when everything is subsiding, when he softens and slips from her, he keeps her there on top of him. He keeps here there in a tight embrace, won’t let her climb off, because he can feel that she wants to do it _for his sake_, and he doesn’t need her to do that. Eventually, this tension in her—this need to break away—seems to dissipate. Brienne rests against him, loose and heavy, a welcome weight. He feels her lips against his neck, her kisses light and lazy. Something relaxes in Jaime too. He knew he could _take_ her—receive her—and he wanted her to know that too. But it’s not because he felt the need to prove his strength. He just wanted—_wants_ her to know, most of all, that he can _hold_ her. She is no burden for him to bear.

** SUNDAY, 11:38 AM **

Brienne turns her head towards the windows, and sinks her cheek into the luxurious cotton of the sheets. Jaime keeps the blinds drawn in his bedroom—with all that glass it’s best to shield themselves from any prying eyes, no matter how high above the city Jaime’s apartment is. But the sun is still doing its level best to shine in through the fabric, through the slivers of glass that the edges of the blinds don’t quite reach. Those slivers form an outline of blue sky, and as Brienne follows this with her eyes, pausing a while on each glimpse of a cloud, she thinks there’s a kind of contentment in staying in on a beautiful day. Staying in _bed_.

“Seems so beautiful outside,” she muses, as she runs her fingers through Jaime’s hair.

Jaime lifts his head. “Really? That’s your comment of the moment, is it?”

Brienne raises her own neck to look down at him. “Someone is taking his time,” she teases. “I thought I’d remark on the weather.”

“Does that mean you want to go somewhere? After I’m done _taking my time_, that is.”

She shrugs and tips her head back into the pillow. “Not really.”

“Good,” Jaime says, before returning his lips to her belly. And it’s as if he means to punish her for that comment, because his kisses—languid already before she opened her mouth—take a turn for _excruciatingly slow_. And it isn’t just his speed, or lack thereof, it’s his insistence on kissing her everywhere but where she wants his mouth _most_. Down her navel, her mons even, then drawing away, _damn him_, travelling across each of her inner thighs, coming so close but not close _enough_, then up—_up_, why _up_?—towards her hip, which really shouldn’t be as lovely as it feels, but she’s getting impatient nonetheless.

“Jaime.”

“Taking my time,” he repeats, and she can feel his breath on her skin, but what use is _that_?

“Could you maybe—”

_not_, she means to say, or _hurry it along_, but every option shrinks back into her throat because just then, _right then_, he’s interrupted her by locking his lips around her clit, and she would scold him for being so rude if it weren’t the best possible way he could have interrupted her in that very moment. Gods, she can count the number of times he’s done this to her on one hand—and all of those times were in the past less-than-two days—yet she already can’t imagine what her life would be without it.

And he’s taking his time still, dragging it out, but she’ll allow it if it’s _here, like this_, with his mouth—his _tongue_ on her, not even his fingers, which are pressing into her thighs. She’ll allow it because it feels _so good_, but perhaps even more because she feels, in some sense—_worshipped_. Oh, it’s not that she wants Jaime’s submission, or obedience, or anything like that. It’s more that—she’s never even _dared_ to entertain the possibility that she might be worthy of someone’s veneration. And Jaime is just _doing so_, freely, and it’s as if he’s giving all of himself to her, without her having to do anything but _exist_.

At any other time, this might make her feel something akin to guilt. She’s always had to work for her achievements, to _earn_ the respect of others, and she—well, all of this wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t _punched Jaime in the face_. That hardly seems like it should be the origin of someone’s reverence. It’s just so ludicrous that things should have worked out this way, that _that action_ would have led up to _this point_, to _Jaime taking his time between her legs_. Nothing makes sense, and Brienne generally likes things to make sense.

But—_ah_—she thinks she’ll have to reconsider this—_fuck_—this position. If not-making-sense can feel like—_Gods, fuck_—like this, then she’ll have to—_ah, Jaime_—she’ll have no choice but to allow it.

** SUNDAY, 9:58 PM **

Jaime watches Brienne carefully over the rim of his glass as he takes another sip of Dornish red. She is lounging in her chair on the other side of the dining table, one hand toying with her collar—no, _his_ collar. Because that is _his_ White Shirt™. She had ransacked his closet this afternoon and helped herself to it, and she looks _criminally good_ in it, particularly with the top three buttons left unbuttoned, and the sleeves rolled up to her elbows to expose her forearms. And her _shorts_. How they appear and disappear beneath its hem.

_Gods._

She is bringing her legs into herself now, stretching and hooking them over one arm of her chair, then the arm of the chair next to her. Her feet come to rest on its seat.

_Gods_, he thinks again. _Her legs._

“Why me?” he hears her ask, from a distance.

“Hmm?” is all Jaime can say. He is far too distracted for existential questions like that.

“Why _me_?” she repeats, and he reluctantly lifts his eyes from her legs to her face. She is staring not at him, but at her own glass, twirling its stem in her fingers, the last dregs of her wine slipping and sliding in its curves.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” and she shifts her eyes to him, “I know you said I’m tall, and I have nice blue eyes. But that’s not enough of a reason, is it?” She tilts her head, thoughtfully. “Especially since I… punched you.”

Jaime chuckles. “In a way, I don’t think I’d have done anything if you hadn’t punched me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That night, I—I acted a certain way, and you treated me accordingly. Just based on what I did. Not… it had nothing to do with whoever you thought I was. With my last name. It was something that—it stayed with me.”

“I was _drunk_, Jaime,” Brienne laughs. “I don’t think I really thought about it.”

Jaime just smiles. “Whatever you say. Anyway, it also gave us a chance to speak. Not—not at the party.” _Drunken insults don’t quite count as conversation._ “I mean, the next day. With HR, and all that.”

“We didn’t say very much,” she muses.

“I got your name, didn’t I? The right one, not _Bridget_. And it still took me weeks to do anything with it.”

“Mmm. And you only did that after… the stairwell.” Brienne places her glass on the table, taps her fingers on its base. “You didn’t come to my cubicle for three days. I thought it was over. Whatever it was.”

“I was just… I needed to think.” Jaime recalls the anxiety of the first day, then a sense of confusion, because— “I had this strange feeling that I didn’t particularly mind that you had overheard.” _I barely knew her, and yet—_ “And I was trying to… make sense of that.”

“Oh.”

Jaime swallows the last bit of wine, and reaches for the bottle to refill his glass just a bit. “More?” he offers Brienne. She shakes her head.

“You know,” he begins, and takes a sip. “Everything I’ve done, it’s always been because I was _born_ into it. You’re—sometimes it feels like you’re the first choice I’ve ever made.”

Brienne gapes at him. “How about coming to the Stormlands in the first place?” she asks, knitting her brow.

“Hmm. I suppose. But it was more an act of—of desperation. It wasn’t a _choice_, not really.” Jaime sighs. “I don’t know. I just reached this point in my life when I thought, surely there must be _another way_. Another path. Then there was this opportunity for me to come here, to oversee things for a while. Perhaps it doesn’t seem like a huge change from the outside, but it felt enough for me at the time, and my family—it was easy for my father to let me come here, when he thought it was only for a few months.”

He pauses, finishes his wine. “And I wanted to see what it would be like, not surrounded by them,” he concludes.

“And?” Brienne probes.

“I stayed, didn’t I?” Jaime puts own glass down on the table, props his head up with a hand.

“You did that for yourself, too. Staying beyond the three months.”

“I did. But you were the choice I made after that. Without—interference.” He leans back in his chair. “I don’t know. Maybe ‘choice’ isn’t exactly the right word for it. We don’t really get to choose who we lo—_develop feelings for_.”

_That was close._ Brienne gives him a funny look anyway.

“And those days we went sightseeing,” Jaime quickly continues, “how good it felt to spend time with you. To talk to you. You can’t _choose_ that. But I was—I would have asked you out, properly, if you hadn’t asked me to dinner first. That would have been my choice, I think. My decision.”

Brienne smiles, and blushes. “Sorry I didn’t give you the chance to do that.”

Jaime grins back. “You’re not sorry.”

“No,” she says, drawing circles on her knee with a finger. “I suppose I’m not.”

She looks at their glasses, both empty now, then glances at the bedroom.

“Bed?” she asks.

“Bed.”

As good as his White Shirt™ looks on her, Jaime thinks he’ll rather enjoy divesting her of it.

** MONDAY, 7:09 AM **

It’s Monday morning.

Brienne knows it’s Monday morning. She knows it’s _the _Monday morning.

The question is, how much more of _the_ Monday morning can she still spend in Jaime’s bed?

She blearily paws for her phone to check the time. The numbers cohere in her head and—

She sits right up.

“Fuck, I overslept!”

Jaime jerks up too, and jumps out of bed. “What? What time is it?”

“It’s already past seven!”

“Oh gods, Brienne.” He slumps back onto the duvet, face down. “There’s plenty of time. It barely takes us five minutes to get to the office.”

“There would be plenty of time for _me_,” she snaps, “if _you_ didn’t hog the bathroom.” She flings the duvet off herself and over his head.

Jaime peeks out from underneath. “I may have a solution to that,” he says, idly.

Brienne has no time for _idle_. She needs to be in the shower _now_. “I’m going to get ready,” she says, ignoring Jaime’s unspoken solution, and heads for the bathroom.

Except Jaime seems to be _following _her.

“What are you doing?” she asks, without looking behind her.

“Saving us some time.”

Not a few minutes later, she’s backed into a corner where wet glass meets wet tile. Jaime’s fingers are having their way with her, and—_oh_, it feels a bit different standing up, the _angle_, the _gravity_—and she can’t help but think that they’re not saving much time at all. She’ll have to move things along. She increases the speed of her own strokes on him, and he breaks from her lips to grin and say, “Is this a competition now?” and then everything is _frantic_ where it was already _wet_, and—fuck, Jaime’s thumb is at just the right spot at just the right speed, and her thumb slides over his tip and he sucks in a breath, so she does it again, and he slams his other palm into the wall right beside her. She’s having to furiously blink soap away from her eyes during this whole process, and whenever Jaime kisses her there’s just so much _water_, and this is frankly _ridiculous_, and also somehow _sexy_, should this really be _sexy_?

When she steps out of the bathroom, leaving Jaime to his rituals, she’s not quite sure they’ve really achieved the main objective of a shower. But she’s willing to consider, maybe, that this way was better.

** MONDAY, 8:21 AM **

Jaime does one last check of his hair in the bathroom mirror. _Looking good as always, Jaime Lannister_, says the little voice in his head.

(He reminds himself never to tell Brienne he has a little voice specifically for assessing his personal grooming.)

Satisfied, he walks back into the bedroom to find Brienne standing in front of a mirror too, the one by his closet. She’s straightening her blouse and—oh, she’s wearing the blue one. _That_ one, the one he likes. The one that brings out her eyes.

The one that she wore on their first date.

“You’re wearing the blouse,” he observes, as he grabs his tie (it’s blue, too) and winds it around his collar.

Brienne simply says, “I am.” Her reflection smiles back at him.

He walks towards the mirror, stands beside her as he works on his tie. He nudges her with his elbow. “Are you ready?”

(Two months. It’s been two months since the morning she asked—in this apartment—_do you think it’s a good idea for us to be seen together?_)

Brienne sighs. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Jaime wants to say it’ll be _fine_, that she’s spent two months worrying about nothing. But on the off-chance that it isn’t fine—

Well, he thinks it’s best if he doesn’t say anything of the sort.

He adjusts his tie, and turns to grab his jacket from its hanger. Brienne’s blazer is hanging beside it, and Jaime has just enough time to think that he likes that—how they look side-by-side—before she removes it and puts it on.

As they walk out of the bedroom, Brienne asks: “Breakfast?”

“Sure,” he replies. “I still have some bread—”

“No—” She slips her hand around his elbow. “I mean, _breakfast. _At the cafe.”

“Oh.” He turns to look at her. “The cafe… right by the office?”

She nods.

“Where everyone can see us?”

She nods again.

“You’re sure?”

Brienne is worrying at her lip now, but she nods again. Jaime thinks if he asks her anymore questions she’ll start to regret ever mentioning it, so he smiles.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Breakfast.”

They each pick up their work bags. Brienne slings hers across her body, throws her shoulders back. Ready as she’ll ever be.

Then Jaime takes her hand, and they walk out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE WILL BE MORE. I have a couple of ideas! But I’ll only get back to this after I finish [The Assignment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711024), which will take… a while. Writing about spies ain't easy, even if they are super soft married spies who communicate healthily. I have a lot more plot to get through with that one, though I’m almost at the final stretch. In the meantime, I’m on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


	12. A woman reveals her relationship with a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. It's me. I know what I said about not coming back to this till I finish The Assignment, but I couldn’t resist taking a break. The next chapter of that is plotted out, and I hope to have it out in the next couple of days, for any of you who are following that story. I just felt like returning to this for a bit!
> 
> Oh, and the emojis return in full force this chapter 😬

It isn’t a disaster.

It isn’t ideal—perhaps no _ideal_ exists—but it isn’t a disaster either.

Brienne can see heads turn as soon as Jaime walks through the entrance of the cafe. This isn’t unexpected—he’s their boss after all—and a few of those heads give him slight nods when Jaime’s gaze happens to fall on them. It is all very cordial.

Until those heads notice he is walking through the entrance _with Brienne_.

More heads turn. More eyes widen. Jaime isn’t holding her hand any longer—_not anything physical_, they had agreed, not even something so chaste—but they are clearly _together_. They walked in together. They proceed to stand in line together, order together, pay together. Pick up two coffees and two pastries together. They sit together. They eat together.

They don’t speak much for the entirety of this short meal. But as she bites into her pastry, meeting Jaime’s eyes as she does so, Brienne comes to the realisation that this _not-speaking_ might make them even more conspicuous. If no words are exchanged, there would be no hiding behind excuses of _oh, it was just a work meeting_. So what if they had agreed on _not anything physical_? They don’t need to touch at all, for people to know. Just having breakfast in silence—_comfortable_ silence, the kind of intimacy that takes months or even years to develop between people—that alone is quite enough. Especially when Jaime keeps smiling at her, and she keeps blushing back. She can’t help herself.

The work day hasn’t even officially started.

At one point, she resists the temptation to brush a crumb from the corner of his mouth. She mirrors the spot by putting a finger to her own lips, until he gets the hint and brushes it away himself. No words are exchanged. For a moment, it seems to Brienne the most intimate thing in the world.

At least, until she remembers the events of the past weekend.

(—of that very morning, in his bathroom, his fingers in—)

Her face burns. Jaime looks at her with concern at first, but it turns into a smirk soon enough. He _knows_. He had told her, the previous afternoon, of the catalogue he keeps in his head—the catalogue of her blushes. Each shade, each part of her body that turns that shade, their corresponding meaning. He had told her, proudly, about how the catalogue had expanded after the events of the past weekend. So he _knows. _Brienne glares at him. The smirk turns into a grin. She takes a giant sip of coffee. No words are exchanged.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see people trying not to stare. They are all failing, these colleagues with whom she barely speaks beyond the bare minimum of water cooler talk. They stare. They share looks with each other. But at least they don’t seem to be making comments under their breaths, or anything like that. Not while she and Jaime are still at the cafe, anyway. She can’t speak for what happens after they leave.

Staring; trying not to stare; sharing looks. It is the same as they walk from the cafe to the entrance of the office building, as they pass through the lobby, as they tap their ID cards at the security gates, as they step into the same lift. _Mr Lannister_, some people greet him, though Jaime doesn’t correct them like he had corrected her months ago. A few who know her personally say _hi Brienne, good morning, hello_, all with a slightly perplexed tone. Is it that obvious? Can they tell just from something so innocent as, well, being next to each other? Are they standing too close—is she still blushing? She can’t tell; she feels warm all over. Or is it Jaime—is there something softer in him, the way he is when they’re alone? Oh hells, she thinks a couple of people, those who call Jaime _Mr Lannister_, almost address her formally as _Ms Tarth_. And for the first Monday in recent memory, no one asks her how her weekend was.

(It is a good thing no one tries to. She would have only gone crimson.)

When they reach their floor and exit the lift, they linger there, even while the rest of the lift’s passengers make their way to their own offices and desks. Brienne has to make a left to go to her cubicle, and Jaime a right for his office. _Not anything physical_, Brienne has to caution herself. Before this morning, she had thought Jaime would be the one who would find it more difficult to obey this rule. But here she is, with the sudden urge to _kiss_ him. To say something silly like, _have a good day at work, honey._

(She’d never call him _honey_. But she is thinking about it now. _Honey. Sweetling. Baby._ No, none of them seem to fit._ Jaime_ still works best of all_._ _Jai_—the way the flat of her tongue taps gently on the roof of her mouth; _me_—the brief touch of her lips. The vowels between.)

She doesn’t kiss him. She smiles instead. They part. No words are exchanged.

Margaery arrives at her own cubicle just a few minutes after Brienne sits down at hers.

“Good morning, Brienne,” Margaery sing-songs as usual. She follows with, “How was your _weekend_?”

The way she says _weekend_ is not so usual.

Brienne hadn’t told her about their plans. Not _really_. She had only told her that she would be staying with Jaime. But she assumes Margaery inferred the rest.

“Good,” Brienne offers, skipping conveniently over all the details. She swivels her chair towards Margaery. “And you?”

“Just _good_?” Margaery teases, ignoring Brienne’s question.

Without warning, an image of Jaime surfaces in her mind. An image of Jaime kneeling between her spread legs as she balances on the edge of his kitchen counter. _Good._ Her body remembers. _Mind-blowing._

“_That_ good, huh?” she hears Margaery say enviously, though Brienne hasn’t responded in words.

Brienne shushes her, and turns back to face her computer. Her phone buzzes only a few seconds later. She picks it up to see a text from Margaery: **I’m so happy for you!!!!!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️🍆🍆🍆**💦💦💦

**Thank you**, Brienne replies, far too sedately considering the number and nature of Margaery’s emoji choices. Then, feeling bold: **You could add a few more eggplants.**

Margaery squeals.

Not so long after, her phone buzzes again. This time, it’s Loras—no, it’s Loras in their group chat—her, him, Margaery, and Renly.

**We’ve been hearing some very interesting information, Brienne**, Loras’s text says.

**We heard you came in with Jaime Lannister this morning**, Renly chimes in. **We heard you had breakfast with him.**

**I did**, Brienne sends back. There is no point in denying it, with so many witnesses. _I told Jaime two months_, she reminds herself. _The two months are up_.

**And why would you do that?** Renly asks, all faux innocence.

Brienne takes a deep breath. **Don’t freak out**, she starts, then regrets that preface immediately, because the next message she receives is:

**YOU’RE SLEEPING WITH HIM?!?!?!?!?!**

Is it possible to flinch at a text? Because she just flinched at Loras’s text. She could swear she heard Margaery snort behind her, though Margaery isn’t yet participating in the conversation.

(Also, yes, as of last Friday, Brienne is technically sleeping with Jaime.)

**SEVEN HELLS BRIENNE**, Renly says, before she can even reply.

_Alright Brienne, short and simple._ **We’re together**, she types, then sends.

**WHAT**, says Loras, which really is sufficient to express his shock, but—

_Buzz. _ **THE**

_Buzz. _ **FUCK**

_Buzz._ **HOW**

_Buzz._ **LONG**

_Buzz._ **HAS**

_Buzz._ **THIS**

_Buzz._ **BEEN**

_Buzz._ **GOING**

_Buzz._ **ON**

Brienne preemptively mutes the conversation, before replying with: **Two months, officially. The ‘being together’ part**, she clarifies. **Only just got around to the ‘sleeping with him’ part.**

(More images surface in her mind. She shoos them away.)

Renly only sends: **😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱**

**Wait, **says Loras’s next message,** why is Marg being so quiet? I thought she’d be**

But he doesn’t finish that message. Or rather, he finishes it with: **OH MY GODS DID YOU KNOW MARG **

A message from Margaery finally pops up. **I’m sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!! She swore me to secrecy!!!!!!! 😫😫😫**

**I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!!!!!!! **😡😡😡 **YOUR OWN BROTHER. WE LIVE TOGETHER.**

**YOU’RE BARELY HOME. YOU’RE AT RENLY’S ALL THE TIME.**

Brienne sighs. **Details, later**, she types, while Loras and Margaery continue arguing. **Work, now.**

She puts her phone face down. No, better to shut it in a drawer.

For the rest of the morning, she refuses to make eye contact with anyone who walks by her cubicle. Renly and Loras had found out about the breakfast so early in the day that she is sure the ‘news’—if it could be called that—must have already spread. Even faster than the ‘news’ of her thinking Jaime looked average, which was what started this whole—_nope, go away, images of Jaime walking around his bedroom completely naked._ She just can’t shake this feeling that the whispering—which no one would dare do in Jaime’s presence—is happening all around her.

(She can’t shake the images of naked Jaime either. Or the sensations that go with them.)

Brienne supposes she is thankful that no one attempts to ask her about the breakfast directly. She doesn’t know how she would respond to such a question. _We’re together_, like she told Renly and Loras? That doesn’t seem right, to be so open about it. But she doesn’t want to lie either, not when Jaime had so graciously given her these two months of secrecy. But if she chooses to respond with something like _that’s personal_, it would mean essentially the same thing as _we’re together_, even if it does communicate her boundaries. And she certainly couldn’t go for _none of your damn business_, which, while true, was also far too confrontational. She would much prefer to keep her colleagues at arm’s length through the use of courtesy rather than conflict.

Soon, though, they will have something else to whisper about. Lunch is creeping closer, and closer, and closer. _Can I come get you at your desk?_ Jaime had asked. _Yes. Okay_, Brienne had replied. Breakfast, together. Lunch, together. There would be no mistaking it then, for anyone who wants to extrapolate from those two events. An hour goes by. Forty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Two. Thirty seconds; eighteen more.

Another second.

And another.

And another.

“Hey.”

_Jaime._ Here, at her cubicle, just as he’s been coming by every day for the past few months. But this is no dance. This is real life.

She stands, and turns. _Jaime_. He has that cool exterior he wears in the office, but there is an eagerness simmering beneath, she can tell.

Oh gods, she wants to kiss him again.

“Hey,” she exhales. She refuses to acknowledge any of the chairs turning towards them, any of the heads peeking out of cubicles. She does look at Margaery, who beams and flashes her a thumbs up. Brienne smiles back.

Jaime looks over his shoulder. “Margaery,” he acknowledges.

“Mr Lannister,” she drawls knowingly. “Enjoy your lunch.”

“Thank you. We will.” Then, turning back to Brienne, he murmurs, “I texted you.”

“Oh! Sorry, I put my phone away.” She takes it out of the drawer. There are no notifications from the muted group chat, though she suspects the conversation went on for quite a while after, but there are a few from Jaime. **Coming over in a bit**, reads the most recent one. **Miss you**, one says. **Can’t wait for lunch**, says another. **Thinking about your**—

She snaps her head back up, and puts her phone in her pocket. Jaime is smirking at her again.

“Ready?” he asks, and she nods. He extends one arm, inviting her to step out of her cubicle. As she does, his other hand falls to the small of her back. _Not anything physical_. Yet she arches_ into_ his palm, not away from it, for that brief moment before Jaime takes his hand away.

(The small of her back tingles.)

Side-by-side, they make their way to the cafeteria. Lannister Corp knows how to take care of its employees in this respect, and the food there is actually decent. It is even sometimes _good_, if you pick the right option. But despite the fact that Brienne’s belly is definitely telling her that she’s hungry, her mind can’t seem to look forward to lunch. She is thinking instead of how odd it is to walk beside Jaime without holding his hand, his unsleeved arm. She feels somehow—_adrift_. And she doesn’t want to feel adrift, because they are about to sit down to eat together in full view of everyone, and it would be much more preferable if she feels anchored instead. If the cafe this morning was indiscreet, then this will be laying everything bare. He would smile, and she would blush, and no words would be exchanged, and everyone would know.

They happen to pass a deserted hallway, and she pulls Jaime into it. She leans back against a wall.

“Alright?” he whispers, leaning in as close as possible without touching her.

She grabs one of his hands with both of hers, feels the warmth of his skin, each ridge of his knuckles. “Fine,” she replies, and breathes. “Just nervous.”

Right then, Brienne hears footsteps near the entrance to the hallway. She lets go of Jaime’s hand, too quick.

Jaime casts a glance in the direction of the passerby, who doesn’t see them. “People… know?” he sighs.

Brienne nods. “I think so. At least, I think there’s gossip already. About breakfast.”

He nods back. “You’re sure you’re still fine for lunch?”

She meets his eyes. He’s _so close_. She wants to kiss him again. She wants to drag him into a supply closet and lock the door and—

Brienne slips out from between him and the wall. “Yes. Lunch.” She clears her throat. _We’re not doing anything wrong._

Jaime smiles. “Good. Come on, I’m starving.”

At the cafeteria, it’s more of what they encountered this morning. Heads turning, eyes widening. Meaningful looks. And this time, there’s an unmistakable whispering too. When they get in line, there is a distinct decrease in volume of the voices around them. Brienne looks at Jaime at that; she knows he’s noticed it too. _See what I mean?_ she tells him with her eyes. He only tilts his head, and frowns slightly.

Thankfully, the cafeteria isn’t too crowded, and they find two seats with a reasonable amount of privacy.

“Ugh.” Jaime wrinkles his nose as he looks down at his food.

“What?”

“I didn’t realise this came with mushrooms.” He starts picking them out with his fork and putting them on Brienne’s plate.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “You’re such a _baby_.”

“They’re gross,” Jaime insists. “And—”

“And _slimy_, yes, I know.”

She puts one in her mouth, and Jaime wrinkles his nose again. As he continues to pick out each mushroom, Brienne is vaguely conscious of the people nearest to them looking their way. _Giving her his mushrooms_—it seems ridiculous that this should draw any attention, but again, it’s the most mundane things that can speak of the deepest intimacies. Jaime might as well have kissed her right then and there.

_Perhaps they just think we’re very good friends_, Brienne hopes, then wonders why she would do so. It’s nonsensical. Why should being perceived as _very good friends_ be any better than being perceived as—as _romantically involved_? The former wouldn’t be the truth, in any case. And people would probably gossip either way.

_We’re not doing anything wrong_, she reminds herself again. She proceeds to concentrate hard on the contents of her own plate.

(Halfway through their meal, she spies Margaery, Loras, and Renly walking into the cafeteria. Margaery winks; Loras grins and clasps his hands together; Renly’s jaw just drops open.)

After lunch—after Jaime walks her most of the way back to her cubicle—some of her nerves seem to melt away. Two meals. They’ve had two meals in full view of everyone. She sits back down at her desk, and lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding for two months straight. She isn’t sure what else is to come, but they’ve crossed a threshold anyway.

The rest of the afternoon passes uneventfully. Beyond Renly and Loras’s texts this morning, no one asks her about Jaime. Around four in the afternoon, she heads to the pantry to make herself a cup of tea. There are a handful of people there, and they look at Brienne with something like anticipation, as if she might produce some kind of verbal acknowledgment of the—the _issue_.

She only makes her tea, and smiles, and leaves.

Just after six, she packs up her things. It’s Monday evening, her stipulated solo gym night. Plus, she hasn’t been back to her apartment since Thursday. There will be no Jaime until tomorrow.

(**Miss you**, one of his texts had said.)

She slings her bag over her shoulder, and says goodbye to Margaery. “Details, Brienne, you promised,” Margaery wags a finger at her. Brienne only blushes, which makes Margaery squeal _again._

Then, Brienne marches straight over to Jaime’s office. There’s no dance, no props. Just her. _We’re not doing anything wrong. _When she arrives, she’s somewhat relieved to see that Peck has already left, and that there isn’t anyone else around to see her step into Jaime’s office.

“Hey,” she says, pushing open the glass door. “Just wanted to let you know I’m heading off.”

Jaime looks up from his computer screen. “Are you coming over?”

_Yes_, she wants to say, even though it’s gym night—_her_ night. She established this rule for a reason, a reason she can’t quite recall at the moment, because Jaime doesn’t have his jacket on and he’s rolled up his sleeves and it’s really very distracting.

“It’s Monday, remember?” she manages to say.

His face falls. “Oh. Right. Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Brienne turns back to check once again if there’s anyone out there who can see the two of them in his office. There isn’t a soul. She walks towards Jaime’s desk and around it, so she’s standing right beside him. He rotates his chair towards her, leans back and gazes up at her.

“We survived,” he declares. He reaches out to brush her hand. “Our first day.”

She feels inclined to tell him that this is only the beginning. There are still so many ways things can be twisted, and Seven knows her mind has worried enough about all those possibilities. But she doesn’t want to spoil this moment.

So she laughs lightly, and nods, and agrees. “We survived.”

She darts her eyes towards the glass once more—there still isn’t anyone out there—and then she leans down and does the one thing she’s been wanting to do the entire day.

She kisses Jaime.

When they break apart, Jaime says, “Not that I mind in the least, but I thought you—”

Brienne kisses him again. Before she knows it, he’s pulled her onto his lap, and one of his hands might just be travelling further down her back, to her waist, to her—

It’s extremely inappropriate for the office. Brienne finds she doesn’t care.

“Are you sure you can’t come over?” he pleads, when they part again.

She’s so very tempted. “You know I shouldn’t,” she says instead, and stands back up.

“You’re far too disciplined,” Jaime observes, though what they’ve just done seems to prove she’s exactly the opposite. “Call me later then. Before bed.”

“I will.” She heads towards the door. “Don’t work too late.”

“I won’t.”

(She doesn’t complain when Jaime shows up at her apartment a few hours later.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No promises about when I’ll get back to this again, but I already have ideas for the next 2-3 chapters! Will this story ever end? WHO KNOWS


	13. A man meets the friends of a woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hasn’t been a great week for me so I wanted to escape into Office AU for a bit! Hope this chapter makes you laugh :)

Jaime has to admit it—Brienne was right.

People talk. Photos circulate.

Hells, _videos_ circulate.

He didn’t think videos of them eating meals or leaving work together could attract that much interest, but apparently they can.

As far as he can tell, however, none of this activity is mean-spirited. People are just nosy, that’s all. It’s mostly harmless.

Brienne doesn’t seem particularly convinced by his assessment. “I’m sure there are people saying nasty things about us,” she tells him about two weeks in, when they’re curled up on his couch, decidedly not watching whatever’s on TV right now.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. I’m—” she waves her hand over her face— “and you’re—” she reaches over and waves her hand over his face. Then she just moves her hand back and forth between their faces.

“What the hells was that?” Jaime laughs.

“You know. You look like _this_.” She waves her hand over his face again, and moves it even further down his body. “I… don’t. People find things to say about that.”

“Oh _gods_, not this again. I think you look—”

She slams a cushion in his face before he can finish his compliment. “Don’t dismiss my feelings!”

“Ow! So when I call you ugly, I get punched, and when I don’t, I get a cushion in the face!”

Brienne shakes the cushion at him. “People are stupid! They’ll say things like—I don’t know, _we’re not a good match_, or, or, or worse!”

_Seven save her. No, Seven save _him_._ “Do _you_ believe that?”

“No!”

“Good!”

“But—”

“No buts!”

“But—”

And Jaime chooses that moment to kiss her, and then some, because the conversation will never end otherwise. If it has to begin again, he’d rather it happen post-orgasm.

Still, just to put Brienne’s mind at ease on some level, Jaime decides to arrange a brief meeting with HR. He knows there isn’t any company policy prohibiting their relationship—he made sure to check the day after their first date—but perhaps there’s _something_ they should be made aware of.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he says to Brienne at his place that evening, towards the end of their dinner.

Of course, those three words have the opposite effect. “_Oh gods_,” she replies, very alarmed. “What now?”

“I met with HR today.”

“I knew it,” she groans. “I’ll hand in my letter of resignation tomorrow.”

Well, at least her first reaction was to offer to quit, rather than break up with him. “Will you _calm down_, Brienne? They said we’re _fine_. There’s no conflict of interest, especially since we don’t work with each other directly.”

“And if we ever do?”

“I’m positive you’ll make sure I treat you fairly.” In fact, he’s sure Brienne will make him treat her _worse _than everybody else. “Besides, people are free to report us to HR.”

“Who’s going to do _that_? You’re the boss.”

She has a point.

“Fine,” Jaime sighs. “We’ll deal with that when it happens, okay? But for now, we’re good.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” she mumbles absently, as if to reassure herself.

He nudges her leg with his foot under the dining table. “I’ve been thinking, anyway—maybe part of the reason why people are so intrigued by us is because I have some… I don’t know what you’d call it. _Aura._”

Brienne barks out a laugh. “Gods, Jaime,” she says, pointing her fork at him, “I forgot to remind you to check your ego at the door.”

He _might_ have pouted at her. “I’m serious!

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s this so-called _aura_ of yours?”

“I’m the boss, right? And I don’t really _know_ anybody in this office. Maybe if they knew me a bit better, they wouldn’t really talk about us. You know, it would—_dispel the mystery_, or something.”

“Jaime Lannister,” Brienne pronounces in mock astonishment, “are you saying you want more _friends_?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, holding up his palms. To be honest, he’s perfectly satisfied with having Brienne as his only real friend in the Stormlands. “Just… I don’t know. Maybe I should _mingle_.”

Brienne looks like she just swallowed a snigger.

“What?” Jaime asks, confused.

“I’m just trying to imagine you… _mingling_.”

“I’ll have you know I perform well in social situations!”

“You perform well in _professional_ social situations. I’ve never actually seen you try to socialise with anybody outside of a business context. Besides me.”

Jaime is about to object to her comment—or at least, point out that he was a perfectly good companion to her at Storm’s End, and at the farmer’s market, and at the art museum, and even on Tarth. Then he remembers how he had started off their first real date, with the… car, and everything. He is _not_ going to give her the opportunity to bring that up.

“Okay, how about—isn’t there a bar that people usually go to after work? The one in our building? What if we just went there on Friday evening?”

Brienne puts her fork in her mouth as she mulls his suggestion. It shouldn’t be so _distracting_, but it _is_. The metal prongs between her lips, her teeth. Her tongue is—

Jaime gives his head a shake, and continues. “I know it’s even _more_ public than you might prefer, but—”

“Marg keeps asking when they can meet you,” she interrupts.

_That… seems off topic._ “Meet me? We’ve met each other plenty of times.”

“Not as our boss. As my—as my bo—”

Brienne stops there, and grimaces so comically that Jaime has to chuckle.

“You’re going to have to get used to saying it at some point,” he reminds her.

“It’s such a juvenile word. _Boyfriend_.” She wrinkles her nose. “I know you’re my first, but it seems… trivial. You’re also very much not a _boy_.”

Jaime is strangely pleased by that comment. Mostly, it was the way Brienne’s eyes evaluated him when she said it. “While I’m glad you think I’m more important than the word implies, I’d really prefer if you didn’t refer to your _boyfriend_ with a look of disgust. Pick another word.”

“Nothing works,” she laments.

_Ah. Of course she’s been thinking about it already._

“How about—_lover_.” Jaime waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Ew.”

“It’s accurate.”

“Still ew.”

“Significant other.”

“Too long.”

“Just S.O. then? People say that, right?”

She leans back in her chair. “I don’t know. Seems too curt. And then I’ll meet that _one _person who doesn’t know what it stands for and—”

“Gods, you’ve thought about this a _lot_.”

Brienne’s cheeks grow pink.

“Let’s try—” Jaime pauses for dramatic effect, “_soulmate._”

Her eyes widen. “You must be joking.”

“And what if I’m not?” he smirks.

“_Definitely_ too intense,” she declares, setting her fork back down on her plate. “_And_ presumptuous.”

“Well, now I’m offended.”

“_Jaime._”

“Okay, how about—_partner_.” He spreads his fingers as he says this. “Simple.”

Brienne looks hesitant, but doesn’t reject it outright. “Feels very… businesslike.”

Jaime tilts his head pensively. “We did meet in an office.”

“Too definitive?” It’s more a tentative question than a decisive verdict.

Jaime shrugs. “Seems just the right amount of definitive to me.”

She bites her lip for a second. “Too… soon?”

It’s been barely three months. Jaime supposes, objectively, it might be too soon. He decides the appropriate response is: “I’m fine, if you’re fine.”

Brienne nods slowly. “I’ll consider it.”

Jaime thinks that might be a ‘yes’ by Brienne’s standards, which makes him feel vaguely triumphant. He stands up from his chair, and grabs their empty plates. “Anyway, back to Marg wanting to meet me,” he says, as he walks to the sink. “What does that have to do with the bar?”

Brienne turns in her chair to look at him. “Maybe if we—five of us, with Renly and Loras too. Drinks. On Friday. We can test your theory, and… they can meet you.”

“Okay,” Jaime smiles back at her, “sure.”

It feels like the next logical step in their relationship—meeting her friends. He likes that. He’s nervous about it, but he likes it.

That night, just before they fall asleep, he hears Brienne call his name softly.

“Jaime.”

“Hmm?”

“Before you meet Renly for real… there’s something I need to tell you about him.”

_That sounds ominous._ “What about him?”

She turns to face him, and he rolls onto his side to face her too. “I… _may_ have had a crush on him,” Brienne whispers. “When I first started this job.”

_Oh._ “Isn’t he with—”

“I didn’t know he was gay at the time.” She won’t look in his eyes. “Not that it matters. He was nice to me and… I liked him.”

“Did he know?”

“Oh no. He still doesn’t.”

“Okay.” Jaime tucks her hair behind her ear. “Thank you for telling me.”

Brienne looks up, finally. “Does it bother you?”

He thinks about it for a few moments. “Not really.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” He flashes her a grin. “I think I’m an upgrade.”

Brienne rolls her eyes and flops onto her back. “_Seven hells_, Jaime.”

He pokes her gently in her ribs. “Oh, so you don’t think so?”

“Are you seriously fishing for compliments right now?”

Jaime’s fingers are finding their way to the hem of her shirt, to the skin underneath. “I’ll be having drinks with your ex-crush. The least you could do is compliment me.”

“No,” she says, as she tries to hide a smile. “You’re ridiculous.”

He is reaching into her pants now, and a good bit lower than that. “No? Are you sure about that?”

She clears her throat, shifts her body to give him better access. “I’m sure,” she answers, though her voice doesn’t seem to match that certainty.

He retracts his hand swiftly, and Brienne almost whines. He ignores her, and shuts his eyes. “Okay then. Goodnight, Brienne.”

“Jaime!”

He cracks open one eye. “Yes?”

“Ugh, fine. You’re an _upgrade_. Happy now?”

“In what ways?”

Brienne groans, and grabs his wrist beneath the duvet. “Come _on_, Jaime.”

He decides to relent. Just a little. He turns back to her and reaches up her shirt this time. “Tell me,” he breathes, kneading her breast.

Suddenly, he’s on his back again, Brienne straddling his waist. _Gods, she’s quick._ Somehow, his hand is _still_ up her shirt, for which it is appreciative, though slightly confused.

“I’ll show you,” she offers instead. Her voice is full of certainty now.

Oh, showing is so much better than telling, he thinks, as she kisses him, and grinds her hips against his, through four layers of fabric, then two, then none.

Friday comes around, and Jaime receives a text from Brienne to meet them at the lifts on their floor at six. When he does so, he finds Brienne’s three friends looking at him eagerly. They seem barely able to contain their excitement, while Brienne is all nerves.

“Jaime, you know Margaery, Loras, and Renly.” She stiffly holds her hand out to each of them as she says their names. “And you know Jaime. My—”

_Partner_ was so inaudible it might as well have died in her throat. But, crucially, she didn’t grimace.

_Good enough_, Jaime mouths at her. She sticks her tongue out at him. Her friends just look amused.

“It’s very nice to meet you finally, Jaime,” Margaery says gleefully. “_Without_ having to call you Mr Lannister.”

“It’s good to meet you too. Shall we?”

They walk into a waiting lift, his hand brushing against Brienne’s. Unexpectedly, she slips her hand into his. He smiles without looking at her, and gives her hand a squeeze, just to be sure it’s really there.

The bar is pretty crowded already, though not rowdy enough that they wouldn’t be able to have a proper conversation. A slight hush falls over its patrons when they notice Jaime walking in, still holding hands with Brienne.

“Aura,” he whispers to her. She rolls her eyes as usual.

They wander around looking for an empty booth that would fit the five of them, to no avail. Just as they’re about to give up, a booth in the corner empties.

“Mr Lannister, you can have ours,” one of its former occupants says. “We’re not staying much longer anyway. We’ll stand at the bar.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t—” Jaime begins, but Margaery jumps in with a “Thank you _so much_. Mr Lannister really appreciates it.”

“Marg!” Brienne hisses.

“What?” the other woman replies, as she slides herself into the booth. “They offered. Besides, this is much more conducive for an interro—I mean, a conversation.”

_Oh no._ Jaime doesn’t like the sound of that. Margaery is looking at him knowingly, and he has a sudden urge to escape. _Dispel the mystery_, he reminds himself.

“I’ll get the drinks,” Renly volunteers. “I know their regular orders. Jaime?”

“Whiskey for me, but maybe I’ll come with you,” Jaime says. “I’ll open a tab. Drinks on me tonight.”

“You don’t have to—” Brienne starts.

“Oh, let him make a good first impression,” Loras assures her coyly. “Thank you, Jaime.”

Brienne smiles apologetically at Jaime, but he isn’t offended at all. He is convinced, however, that Tyrells are constitutionally unable to feel shame.

As he and Renly wait for the drinks, Jaime reminds himself that while he hates small talk, it’s a necessary evil in such situations. So he cycles through surface level questions like, _how long have you been working for Lannister Corp? _And, _Brienne tells me you were her first friend here, weren’t you?_ And, _how long have you and Loras been together?_ He thinks he did a pretty good job of it too, even if the little voice inside him kept whispering, _you’re an upgrade_. It was very smug throughout the whole exchange.

Back at the booth, Margaery proposes a toast. “To the happy couple!”

Brienne blushes furiously, but can’t help but smile as their glasses clink. Both blush and smile don’t fade even as they take their first sips. Jaime stares at her, transfixed, and her smile widens as she meets his eyes.

“Look at you two,” Loras teases, “how long has it been? Three months?”

“Thereabouts,” Jaime answers. “Since our first official date.”

“Where was that again?” Renly asks. “Storm’s End?”

“No, we went to the seafood place near my apartment.” Brienne responds, and her three friends nod appreciatively. Of course, Brienne must have brought them there before. “Storm’s End was—”

“A trial run,” Jaime finishes for her.

Brienne nudges him with her elbow. “What do you mean ‘a trial run’? You said we were _sightseeing_.”

“It was a trial run for me,” Jaime declares matter-of-factly, though Brienne is glaring at him. “I thought we did quite well, don’t you think?”

“I _told_ you, Brienne,” Margaery insists, then turns to Jaime. “I told her, _how could they not be dates?_”

“Well, those weren’t _technically_ dates. I just wanted them to be, I think.”

“Still. She brought you to _Tarth_.”

Her three friends all sigh dreamily. Brienne just puts her head in her hands and groans.

“Tarth was very nice,” Jaime chuckles, placing one hand on Brienne’s thigh under the table.

“Are you going to be overseeing this office for a while?” Renly says. “I thought this was a temporary assignment. Wasn’t the head office looking for someone to fill the position?”

“I’ll be here for as long as I can manage,” Jaime replies. No use going into more than that. “It’s a good change of pace from King’s Landing.”

“Tell me about it,” Margaery agrees.

“I thought you enjoyed your time there, Marg,” Brienne says. “You always go on about how exciting it was.”

“The _city_ was great. The office—not so much. Too much drama, even for me.”

Jaime shares a look with Margaery—she must know some of it. “I don’t think we ever crossed paths in King’s Landing,” he says to her, cautiously.

“No. I have met your brother, though.”

Strange. There’s something about her tone that—

“Oh no.” Jaime stares at her in horror. “You? And Tyrion?”

Margaery only smiles mysteriously as she takes a sip of her cocktail.

“You—you never told me that, Marg,” Brienne sputters.

Margaery shrugs. “Most of that story is… things you don’t like to know. You wouldn’t have been a very willing audience.”

Loras nods sagely beside his sister. “You really don’t _want_ to know.” He might have mouthed something that could have been the word _acrobatic_.

“_Back to the original topic_,” Renly cuts in emphatically, saving Jaime from some very awkward mental images. “Do you think you’ll be relocating here permanently, then?”

“We’ll see. I’d have to sort things out back in the capital.” That’s really pushing the limits of what he’d be willing to share. “I’m open to it, especially with Brienne here, but I’m still living out of a service apartment currently.”

“The one just a few blocks from here, right? Swanky _and_ convenient,” Loras comments enviously. “Don’t they have a great bar there? Ooh, we should have gone _there _tonight.”

“Jaime wanted to come here. To _mingle with the employees_.” Brienne pats him on the chest. “He thinks if he’s seen here, they might find it less interesting to talk about us.”

“Good theory,” Margaery acknowledges, “but I doubt that will work.”

“Why not?” Jaime asks.

Loras leans in. “The masses can’t get enough of you two,” he tells them in a hushed voice.

Brienne laughs nervously. “What the hells does that mean?”

“They’re _fascinated_. First, the son of Tywin Lannister swoops down on our office. Next thing we know, Brienne says she doesn’t think you’re good-looking.”

“Which is untrue,” Jaime feels compelled to confirm. Brienne pats him on the chest again.

“_Obviously_. She has eyes,” Loras says dismissively. “Anyway, you end up staying, and you find out about it, blah blah blah you say some things and she punches you. As all parties present remember.”

“It was a good punch,” Renly murmurs.

“It was,” Jaime agrees. Brienne groans again.

“Then,” Loras continues, “she doesn’t lose her job. Then you start doing the whole walking-to-her-cubicle thing.”

“People noticed that?”

Loras, Renly, and Margaery just gawk at him.

“Fine. I’m conspicuous, I get it.”

“Okay. But as far as we’re concerned, you’re just doing that for _months_. So everyone kind of got used to it. Maybe it’s just a weird quirk you have, right? We had no idea you were seeing each other outside of the office—although, come to think of it, there was that rumour going around that someone had seen them at the art museum.”

“Oh gods.” Brienne looks at Jaime in panic. “I didn’t know about that.”

“That one didn’t reach me.” Margaery furrows her brow. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

“We all thought it was nonsense. They had no proof. And then, WHAM!”

Loras bangs his empty glass on the table, and everyone jumps. Some people standing near their booth turn to stare at them. Jaime isn’t sure why Loras bothered starting this story so quietly if he was planning on doing _that_, but at least he’s lowered his voice again.

“You’re having breakfast and lunch together most days, and you’re leaving the office together most evenings. It’s _fascinating_.”

“Is it?” Brienne asks, genuinely curious.

Loras leans back. “Most of these people do not have the most interesting lives, Brienne,” he pronounces. Then, his expression turns inquisitive. “Speaking of leaving the office together, how many times a week are you seeing each other, exactly?”

Jaime abruptly remembers how Margaery almost referred to this as an interrogation.

“You mean spending the night,” Margaery smirks at her brother.

“Marg!” Brienne slaps Margaery’s arm with the back of her hand.

Jaime meets Brienne’s eyes and shrugs. They’re a couple, right? They see each other often, like couples are supposed to do. He thinks.

“Six,” Jaime says, at the same time as Brienne says, “Five?”

They look at each other.

“Sometimes five,” Jaime corrects, at the same time as Brienne switches to, “Maybe six?”

“_Brienne_,” Margaery teases, “you didn’t say it was _that_ often.”

“D-didn’t I?” Brienne is beet red now.

“Good gods.” Loras gapes at them. “And you’ve been together for what—three months?”

“Thereabouts,” Jaime repeats.

“Five or six nights out of seven,” Renly muses. “And seeing each other in the day too.”

“We don’t work together at all,” Brienne says weakly. “We hardly see each other in the day.”

Loras props his elbows on the table and puts his chin on his hands. “Why don’t you just _move in together_?”

Brienne almost knocks over her glass of wine.

“Loras!” Margaery scolds. “Don’t pressure them!”

“What? They’re practically living with each other already!”

“So are you and Renly, and you haven’t _officially _moved in together!”

Renly just tugs at his collar nervously.

“I like knowing I still have my own space!” Loras snaps, though Jaime can tell it’s affectionate rather than malicious.

“Oh please, you’re _never around_.”

“Don’t complain. I do it for your benefit too. All that _privacy_ you get.”

“Oh, so it’s because you’re so _generous_ then.”

Renly just looks at him with an expression that says, _this happens a lot_.

While the siblings are bickering, Brienne takes this opportunity to tell them that she’s going to get some air.

Jaime gets up from his seat to let her out of the booth. “I’ll come with you,” he offers.

The bar is on one of the highest floors of the building, and part of it opens out onto a large balcony that overlooks the city, so that’s where they go. It’s not as crowded as it is indoors—it’s a chilly night—and they’re grateful for the breather. He feels Brienne slip her hand into his again.

“Sorry they’re so… _much_,” she says, sheepishly.

“It’s fine. I was fine, wasn’t I? I didn’t embarrass you?”

She smiles approvingly. “You were fine.”

“So,” Jaime sighs, “do you think we’re spending too much time together?”

Brienne looks at him uneasily. “I don’t know. What’s ‘too much’?”

“I don’t know either.” This isn’t just Brienne’s first relationship, it’s his first too—the first serious one, anyway. “If this is _too much_—well, I don’t know why it still feels like _not enough_.”

She doesn’t respond. Just looks away from him, casts her eyes out over the balcony. Jaime wants to kick himself for saying something like _that_—he must have scared her, or something; he shouldn’t have been so _needy_.

Then Brienne announces:

“My lease is up in three months.”

Jaime is stunned for a moment. Her words hang in the air.

“Oh,” he finally manages.

“Yeah. And I need to decide soon if I’m renewing it.”

“Well—I, I like your apartment. It’s very cosy. You should—if you like living there, you should renew your lease.”

Brienne is looking at him again—oddly, this time. _Jaime, you are an idiot._

“I do like living there,” she says, slowly. “And it is very cosy. But I would assume other cosy apartments exist. Or other apartments that can be made cosy.”

“Of course.”

“So. I don’t _need_ to renew my lease.”

Jaime nods, and turns his head towards the city. It shouldn’t be this easy. He’d _thought_ about it, obviously, once they’d started spending nights at each other’s apartments. But he hadn’t wanted to bring it up yet. It was one of those things that he _knew_ was too soon, no matter how right it _felt_. And—gods, this is _Brienne_ he’s dealing with. She wanted their relationship under wraps for two months. She took a week to pluck up the courage to ask if they were together exclusively. And who knows how long she’s been trying to decide on a substitute for the word ‘boyfriend’.

It shouldn’t be this easy. But it is. It feels right.

“We can start looking for a place,” Jaime says.

Brienne grips his hand a little tighter.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PROGRESS


	14. A woman discusses cohabitation with a man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever thought to yourself, “wow, I would really love to read about Jaime and Brienne talking through the (financial) terms of their impending cohabitation, all while enacting some complicated and seductive hand choreography”?
> 
> If that sounds like your wildest dreams come true, boy do I have the chapter for you!

“Jaime?” Brienne calls from the couch.

“Hmm?”

She looks over to him seated at the dining table, staring intently at his laptop screen. She _thought_ he was catching up on work, but she had clearly thought wrong, because—

“Why do I have—” she pauses to check her phone— “ten separate emails from you?”

“Listings,” he says absently.

“Listings,” she repeats, with a sigh. “We just decided to move in together—” she pauses to check her phone again— “three hours ago.” The _decision_ was made three hours ago; the actual move is supposed to happen _three months from now_. “We’ve been back in your apartment for an hour. And you’ve already managed to send me _ten listings_.”

“Hmm,” he grunts, without looking at her. “Just sent you two more.”

“Can’t you at least compile them into a single email?” she asks uselessly, knowing full well that Jaime _won’t_, even if he _can_.

Jaime points at his screen. “There’s a share button for every listing. Just delete the ones you don’t like.”

“Fine,” Brienne grumbles. She flops down on the couch, stretching out on her back, and holds her phone above her. She taps on the first email—

and almost drops her phone on her face in shock.

She opens the next email, and the next, and the next.

The properties featured in these emails are all _very nice_, to say the least. They are also all in the same _very nice_ price range—a price range so far beyond her own means that she isn’t sure her brain should be aware that these places exist.

“Jaime, this is ridiculous.”

“What is?”

“I can’t _afford_ any of these.”

The one she’s looking at now seems… well, frankly, it just looks like a variation on his service apartment. An _even posher_ variation, which she hadn’t thought was possible. Didn’t they agree on ‘cosy’? She thought they’d agreed on ‘cosy’. Okay, maybe they didn’t _verbally_ agree on ‘cosy’, but ‘cosiness’ was certainly implied. On a ‘cosiness’ scale of one to ten, this place is maybe a three, and that’s being generous.

More importantly, the cost is _astronomical_.

“Wait.” She taps quickly through all twelve listings in her inbox. “Are all of these properties for sale? Aren’t we renting?”

Brienne hears Jaime close his laptop, push his chair back, and walk towards her. A shadow falls on her face, and she looks up to see him leaning his elbows on the back of the couch, bending over her.

“I’m buying.”

_He’s buying._

Sometimes, Brienne has to wonder if Jaime Lannister is real. There are many things that prompt her to ask herself this question—his forearms being one of them—but offering to buy them an apartment? No—offering to buy them an _astronomically expensive_ apartment, with the same casualness as offering to pay for dinner?

_Jaime Lannister is not real. I’ve hallucinated everything._

“You can’t just—” she begins, then realises he probably _can_, so she just ends her sentence with— “_what_?”

“I’m buying,” Jaime repeats. He seems bewildered by _her_ bewilderment. “Property prices here are very reasonable. A fraction of the prices in King’s Landing.”

_A fraction of the_—these are _luxury apartments_ he’s talking about. Come to think of it, she’s pretty sure three of those listings in her inbox are for _entire houses _in very central neighbourhoods. Houses with more bedrooms than they’d actually need.

“You’re _buying_,” she echoes, thinking she might understand it more if she says it out loud. (She doesn’t.)

“I’m buying,” Jaime says for the third time, as he rounds the couch and sits at her feet.

Alright. If this is the case—if Jaime wants to _buy them an apartment_, or a _house_, just like that—Brienne has questions. She suspects that most of these questions can be answered with: _Jaime Lannister is mind-numbingly rich, and mind-numbingly rich people do not live by the rules that govern her existence. _But that is not an adequate response to the situation at hand.

“I have questions,” she states firmly. She lifts her head and props it on a cushion so she can look at him.

Jaime shifts towards her, and heaves both of her feet onto his lap. “Questions?”

“These all seem so…” She scrolls through the listings again, and tries to clear the judgmental tone from her throat. “Are they… representative of your budget?”

Lazily, he traces a finger along the top of her foot. “I’d say these prices are the ceiling.” His finger reaches her ankle, and reverses its direction. “But I could go higher if—”

“No! Not higher.” She flexes her foot—almost jerks it at his touch, or perhaps at his suggestion that he could be spending _more_. “Would you consider going… lower?” She curls her toes. “_Much_ lower?”

“You don’t have to worry about the money,” he insists. “I consider it… an investment.” He slides his hand up to her shin and rests it there, as if to reassure her.

Most of the time, when Jaime tells her not to worry, Brienne is aware that she’s worrying far too much. But this time, she’s absolutely sure _he’s_ the one who’s not worrying _enough_.

“Jaime,” she sighs, and stretches out an arm to set her phone on the coffee table. “It’s not that simple. We need to be on the same page about—about _so many things_.”

“Aren’t we? On the same page, I mean.” His palm has found its way to her calf, and is slowly moving up and down its curve. She can’t decide if this is making her regret her decision to wear shorts tonight. “We want to live together. That’s the most important thing. The rest is just… details.”

_Details._ Brienne slaps her hand over her eyes and sighs again. “The details _matter_, Jaime. And when it comes to the details, we are not on the same page _at all_. Yours reads—” she lifts her hand in the air to draw the lines on an imaginary page— “‘I’ll buy an expensive apartment all on my own and move both of us in, because I’m Jaime Lannister and I’m unbelievably wealthy’. Mine reads—” she returns her hand to the top of the imaginary page— “‘we’ll rent an apartment at a reasonable rate and split the cost, if not equally, then proportionately according to our income levels.’”

“We don’t _have_ to rent,” he shrugs. _Shrugs_. Because mind-numbingly rich people have the privilege of _shrugging_ about home ownership.

“Doesn’t it make _more_ sense for us to rent at this point?”

“I prefer the—hmm. The _security_.” He shifts himself towards her once more, so that her knees are bent over his thighs now. “And I’m tired of living somewhere that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. To _us_.”

She nudges a knee gently into his belly. “But you’re not—we’re not even sure how long you’re going to be working here.”

He shrugs again. _Right._ Because mind-numbingly rich people have the privilege of treating home ownership as a solution to temporary residency. Gods, she’s not sure why it hasn’t occurred to her before, but Jaime probably has a lakeside cabin in the North and a summer house in Dorne and, oh, a refurbished farmhouse attached to a vineyard in the Reach or something. And that’s in addition to Casterly Rock, and whatever palatial abode—or _abodes_—that his family must own in King’s Landing.

“We’ll figure that out _if_ I have to move back to the capital,” he says, as his fingers—oh, she definitely should _not_ have worn her shorts tonight, because his fingers are _gliding up her thigh now_.

“That’s—that’s not—no!”

She slaps his hand lightly, and he pauses its ascent, but doesn’t remove it from her thigh.

“No?”

“Stop that!”

“Stop _what_?”

She gives her legs a shake. “The thigh thing!”

“Why?”

“It’s distracting!”

Brienne sits up and sweeps her legs away from Jaime’s hands, tucking them beside her.

“Focus, Jaime!” She snaps her fingers in front of his face.

“I _am_ focused!” He grips her fist before she can retract it, and sets it on his lap. “Do I have to remind you that _I’m_ the one who’s started searching for a place?”

“They’re all places I can’t afford!”

Jaime puts the index finger of his other hand to her breastbone. “You don’t _need_ to afford them if _I_ can. That’s my point.”

She swats his finger away before Jaime gets any ideas about where else it can travel on her chest. “Then it won’t be _ours_.”

“It _will_.” He rests his hand on her knee. _Damn it._

“It isn’t just a matter of _saying so_, Jaime.” She puts her free hand on his so it can’t move further up her leg. They must look nonsensical—her left hand trapping his right on her knee, his left hand trapping her right in his lap. “You said—you _just said_ you wouldn’t want to live somewhere that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you. If you pay for everything, I won’t feel like it belongs to _me_.”

“Pay a token sum then.”

Brienne wants to scream at him. But she won’t. “That’s not the point,” she says instead, through gritted teeth. “It won’t be a—” she tries to think of a phrase that can explain it better— “a _joint venture_.”

“Fine.” He interlaces his fingers with hers in his lap. “We’ll figure out an amount that’s still comfortable for you.”

_That’s not—that doesn’t feel right either._

Brienne thinks of her father’s house on Tarth. How he has lived in the same house for decades, and how his father had lived there before him. How, years down the road, she assumes she will come to own that house too. That is what she thinks of when she thinks of owning a home—years, decades, generations. All that _time_.

Moving in with Jaime—she hadn’t even expected to make such a big life decision this evening. And that decision has somehow managed to grow _even bigger_.

“It’s not _just_ the money,” Brienne admits, curling her fingers tightly into the space between his palm and her knee. “Owning a home—it seems so _permanent_. I’d really be much more comfortable renting.”

“What’s wrong with ‘permanent’?” Jaime asks quietly. There’s a wounded look in his eyes.

_Shit._ Brienne knows there’s no way to talk about the… the potential paths their relationship could take, without Jaime getting upset. She takes a breath, brings their hands together in the space between them, and tries to choose her words delicately.

“It’s just—we’ve only been together for _three months_. We don’t know what the future holds for us. I’m—I’m trying to be practical.”

Jaime frowns. “You think we’re going to break up?”

_So much for choosing her words delicately._ “I didn’t say _that_.”

He slips his hands from hers, and folds his arms. “You’re entertaining the possibility.”

“I’m _acknowledging_ it, not _entertaining_ it.” She moves towards him, points her index finger into his breastbone the way he’d done to her just minutes before. “The same way you’re _not_ acknowledging the possibility that you might be dragged back to King’s Landing next month, for all we know.”

“Which doesn’t mean we’ll have to break up.” Jaime seems to sit up a little straighter, to pitch his voice a little lower. “And it doesn’t mean I won’t still want to have a home here _with you_, if you’re planning on staying while I figure things out there.”

Okay. Jaime might have said all of that with conviction, but Brienne is not the least bit prepared to derail this conversation into an entirely different one about the feasibility of a long-distance relationship. Though, to be fair, she hadn’t been much prepared for a conversation about _Jaime buying a home for them_, and they’re having that conversation anyway. It suddenly hits Brienne that—that her life has veered so far off the road she thought she was travelling a few months ago. This should be scary, shouldn’t it? This _permanence_?

She moves her hand up his chest towards his neck, strokes the soft skin there. “Jaime, I—”

“Buying is non-negotiable for me, Brienne.”

_No_, she realises, as she lets that sentence settle in her mind. _This permanence isn’t scary at all._ It is unexpected, yes—but deep down, it doesn’t scare her.

She still thinks it’s _ridiculous_ that Jaime could offer to buy them a home at the drop of a hat.

Jaime chooses this moment to unfold his arms, and run his left hand from her wrist—where it meets his neck—down the length of her forearm. He lets that hand sit firmly in the bend of her elbow. His right hand is on her thigh again, but it just rests there—no gliding fingers—and Brienne doesn’t feel any urge to push that hand away. Something—something is _different_ about him. His gaze is direct, and his eyes possess no hint of the earnestness, the need for approval that has become so familiar to her. But she’s drawn to the green of them all the same. His demeanour is more—she doesn’t want to say _arrogant_, but _confident_ doesn’t seem like the right word either. _Cool?_

“I’m willing to look at properties at a lower price point,” he continues, his voice even deeper than before, more _serious_. “But I’m not making any compromises if money is the only objection.”

Oh. She recognises this Jaime now. She doesn’t see him very often, but this—this is Work Jaime. She knows what they’re doing here on this couch.

They’re _negotiating terms_.

Two can play at that game.

She fixes her own gaze on him, and lets her fingers tease at the hair on the back of his neck. “If you insist on buying, I’ll have to insist on paying rent.”

“I’m your partner, not your landlord,” he says, voice perfectly steady. He’s _good_. Not even a shiver at the touch of her fingers. “I don’t want you to pay me.”

“I don’t want you to buy us a home, either. But that’s your condition, isn’t it?” She caresses the curve of his earlobe, the line of his jaw. “This is mine.”

He moves his right hand up her thigh in response, just an inch, and lets it still again. “You _want_ our relationship to be so—transactional?”

“No. I want to contribute to the household. There’s a difference.” Brienne places her free hand just shy of his inner thigh, and smugly notes how Jaime casts his eyes down to it, even if just for a second. “We will… mutually decide on a number. Taking into account the market rate.” She swipes her thumb in an arc across his leg, tracing a border that she will not cross until the situation calls for it. “None of that _token sum_ bullshit.”

His eyes widen slightly at her choice of words. “And if I—” the muscles in his thigh contract beneath her hand, beneath the swiping of her thumb— “if we _both_ decide on a place that’s beyond your means? How would we decide on the number then?”

Brienne opens her mouth to answer, but before she has a chance to say a word, Jaime’s left hand releases its grip on her elbow, and reaches over to brush the back of a finger delicately over her cheek. He flicks—or seems to flick—something from his fingertips, before he returns that hand to his lap. “Eyelash,” he murmurs.

“Mm.” She knows there was no eyelash—it was _strategy_—just as she knows he felt some ripple through her body when he touched her cheek. But she won’t let herself falter. “Then we introduce a cap. I’m able to comfortably afford up to twenty percent more than my current monthly rent.”

A corner of Jaime’s lips turns upward at her offer. “Fair. But I still don’t like the idea of earning money from you.”

“Don’t think about it that way.” She slides her hand from his neck down to his shoulder, to his upper arm, to his… forearm. Probably not the wisest idea to introduce this sort of distraction into the discussion, but she can’t resist. “Like I said, it’s my contribution to the household.” She indulges her hand in tracing the taper of his muscles, from elbow to wrist. “A way to… feel like it’s mine.”

Jaime moves his hand further up her thigh again—but this time, he doesn’t stop after an inch. Not after two, or three. Oh, she knows what she just told herself about _distractions_, but this isn’t a _distraction_. Simply… the next logical step in their negotiation. She begins to move her own hand in reply, the one in his lap, crossing unmistakably into the region of his inner thigh.

“We create a separate bank account then.” He looks down, openly and appreciatively, at the positions of her hands—the left in his lap, ever closer to his… and the right, massaging his forearm. “You pay your ‘rent’ into that account,” Jaime elaborates, “and we use it for daily expenses, bills, maintenance, etcetera.”

“Very sensible,” Brienne agrees. She eases her body even closer to his. “And this—it won’t be a joint account. You won’t cheat,” she whispers into his ear, “and deposit any money into it, will you?” She brings his left wrist towards her, guides his hand to her waist, releases it there.

“No. You can manage it.” His voice isn’t as steady or deep as it was before. “But I still get to pay for all the—” his right hand is practically up the hem of her shorts now, and his left is stroking the slight curve from her waist to her hip— “non-essentials.”

“Non-essentials?” Brienne exhales, and winds her free hand around his neck again, pulling him closer to her.

“Dates.” His hand—the one on her waist—is slipping under her shirt. “Vacations.” His fingers ghost over her ribs. “Other… activities.” He runs a thumb across her nipple, already hard.

There is barely any space between them now. Brienne lets her lips meet his, just so—feels him searching for more than that feather light touch. She pulls back a breath later. “Is this… one of those activities?”

“Oh no. I consider this activity very_ essential_.” Jaime hooks a finger, three, over the elastic of her shorts, tugs it gently downwards. “And it costs us _nothing_.”

She withdraws both her hands from him, to Jaime’s brief displeasure, until he sees that she is reaching for the hem of her shirt. She lifts the cotton, gradually, watches as his eyes follow its path up to her breasts—and then she pauses.

“I reject your terms on non-essentials.”

Jaime groans right then. “You’re killing me, woman!”

“Ha!” Brienne lets her shirt fall back down. “You _broke_!”

He surges forward and kisses her, with such hunger that she falls back onto the couch with a startled giggle, bringing him along with her. “What are your terms?” he demands, desperately, pulling her shorts _and_ her underwear down with the fingers that are still tucked in her waistband. “I’ll agree to _anything_.”

The words leave her mouth in a rush: “Costs of non-essentials are split proportionately according to our income levels.” She’s scrambling to get Jaime’s shirt off him, to kick her shorts and underwear off her ankles at the same time.

“Agreed,” he says, just as his head is through his collar, and he throws his shirt over the back of the couch. And then he smirks and says, “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” but Brienne hardly has time to laugh at such a terrible line because next thing she knows—

_his face is buried in her cunt_.

Gods, she will never tire of him doing _this_. If they had gotten to this point earlier, _much _earlier, _she_ would have been the one who’d agree to anything.

As she hooks one leg over the back of his couch, opens herself to his mouth, she thinks, absurdly, of interior design. She thinks of large and comfortable and stable sofas, and large and comfortable and stable beds, and how every other surface and piece of furniture in their new home should, ideally, be large and comfortable and stable enough to withstand both their bodies at some point, even if they are not made specifically to accommodate this wholly essential activity.

Later, three orgasms later—the second of which was Jaime’s, and that was before he’d even had a chance to be inside her—he tells her they should do this more often.

“We don’t do this enough?” she asks, glancing down at where she is guiding him into her entrance.

“No—_ah_—” he’s finding his rhythm— “although I won’t object to any increase in—_ah—_frequency. I mean—_move back a little_—the way we talked just now.”

Brienne shuffles back on the couch, lets Jaime readjust. “Our—_oh_—negotiation?”

“Mmm.” He reaches his fingers between them.

“What… would we—_faster, Jaime_—negotiate?”

“Anything.” He dips his head to kiss her. “Everything,” he breathes into her lips. “Whatever we can—_fucking hells._”

Brienne laughs. Or she would have, if she hadn’t been too busy making other sounds at that point. “Don’t you think we’ve been—_shit_—” Jaime had shifted his angle— “doing that already?”

He takes a while to respond, possessed by a sudden urge to lock his lips around one of her nipples. She’s almost forgotten her question when she finally hears him reply, “I guess so. But tonight was more—” he kisses her again, and pauses above her— “fun.”

She can’t say she’s grateful for this intermission, but she uses it to catch her breath anyway. “It won’t be as fun if we do it _all the time_,” she observes. She lets her hands skate across the bare skin of his back, settle on his hips.

“Not… all the time. Whenever it—” he starts to move again, slowly— “feels right.”

Brienne smiles up at him, and tries to formulate an answer. But, _oh_, Jaime isn’t moving so slowly anymore, and she finds she’s no longer partial to communicating in words.

This—this is _being on the same page_. This is the most important thing.

The rest is just… details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was that? How did this chapter even happen? Did I actually spend the past week trying to make a relatively boring conversation... sexy? I have many questions for myself that will never be answered.


	15. A man meets the father of a woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season, however you celebrate it (or don't)! Here's a little present from me to you. And by ‘little’, I mean I managed to write 6,000 words about... not very much. But if you've been following this story, you already know that's par for the course.

“Oh fuck!”

“Huh—wha—”

_Thud._

“Ow! Oh Seven—what the hells, Brienne!”

“Jaime!”

“Yes, for fuck’s sake, what? Did we oversleep again?”

_No_, Jaime answers in his head almost immediately, _I’m ninety-seven percent sure it’s Sunday morning._ A Sunday morning he had planned to spend mostly _in_ Brienne’s bed, not on the floor beside it with a sore hip.

This, unfortunately, is not the first time he has fallen out of Brienne’s bed. Brienne’s bed is not built to accommodate two very tall and very muscular people, nor is it built for her tendency to monopolise the mattress in her sleep, while Jaime attempts to cling onto her for dear life. Fine, perhaps some of the previous falls may have occurred as a result of his… enthusiasm, while they were engaged in activities _other_ than sleep. But this one—this is the first fall that has happened because Brienne sat up all of a sudden, freeing herself from his embrace with an urgency that seems to have required _all of her physical strength_, and in the process freeing _him_ from what turned out to be the only thing keeping him from being pushed off the edge.

He takes this opportunity to remind himself that they need to get the largest bed possible for their new place. No—they need to custom-make a bed such that their bedroom is all mattress, and no floor.

Still rubbing his hip, Jaime looks up to see Brienne peering down at him over the edge of the bed.

“I just realised you haven’t met my dad!” she blurts out.

_What in the— _“Did you seriously push me off the bed for _that_?”

Brienne just puts her head in her hands. “Oh gods, I can’t believe myself. We’re going to move in together and _you haven’t met my dad_.”

Jaime lets out a miserable groan as he strains to sit up. “You’re not even going to ask if I’m fine?”

She looks over at him, with a good deal less concern on her face than she should rightly express, considering the pain she just inflicted upon him. “Are you?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he grumbles, climbing back onto the bed and flopping down on his back. “What’s with the sudden epiphany?”

Brienne crosses her legs and shifts herself to face him. “I was just thinking about how I should head back to Tarth next weekend, and then I was thinking about how we’re going to move in together, and then I just—I don’t know. I _realised_.” Abruptly, something like anger flashes in her eyes. “Why didn’t you remind me?” she demands, swatting at him.

“Why didn’t I—” _Oh, the woman’s gone mad_. “He’s _your_ father! And you’ve gone back to Tarth alone, what, twice since we started dating? I thought you just wanted to—I don’t know, suggest it in your own time!”

“Ugh, I know. I’m sorry.” She buries her face in her hands again. “Would you be mad,” she mumbles into her palms, barely audible, “if I told you that he doesn’t know?”

“About?”

“You. Us.”

“_At all_?”

Brienne just nods.

“What? _How?_” Jaime doesn’t _mean_ to sound so accusatory but— “Don’t you speak to him every week?”

She bends forward until her forehead hits his chest. “I don’t know,” she sighs into his ribs. And then that sigh turns into a full-on _ramble_. “We were keeping things quiet, and I kind of just told myself not to say anything to anyone besides _maybe_ Marg, and I’ve never really dated or been in any kind of relationship so I’ve never had to talk about this stuff with my dad, and I wasn’t sure things were going to work out between us because it was so early, and then it was almost nice that we had this thing that’s just ours and maybe I thought talking about it would jinx it or something, I don’t know, but I just got used to _not talking about it_ with him, and it was like—” she sits upright again, and lifts both hands in front of her— “whenever I go to Tarth I feel like I’m in a different world, with my dad, and whenever I come back here—” she partitions the air— “it was just me and you in our own little universe and it was _lovely_, and I wanted so much to keep it that way, and I just wouldn’t really think about how _he doesn’t know_, and now everything’s happened so quickly and we’re going to move in together and_ I haven’t told my dad_, oh _gods_.”

Brienne’s face is so red right now that Jaime has to make every effort not to laugh. “Are you mad?” she asks again, placing a palm on his belly.

“I’m too busy trying to digest everything you just said to feel much of anything,” he chuckles, patting her on the knee.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly, twisting her hands in the duvet. “Everything just…” She sighs again without completing the sentence, and lets herself fall face first into her pillow beside him.

Jaime rolls onto his side to face her. “I’m not mad,” he assures her. “It’s not like anyone in _my_ family knows about you anyway, besides my brother.” Gently, he starts to run his fingers through her hair, in part to stop himself from imagining how his father and sister might react to Brienne’s existence. “I’m just surprised, that’s all,” he continues. “You and your dad—you seem pretty close.”

“We are, in some ways,” she replies. “It’s just been the two of us for such a long time. After my mum and Galladon…”

Brienne trails off, and Jaime doesn’t press for more. She’s told him enough of what happened to her mother and her brother.

He shifts closer to her, and as she turns her head from her pillow to look at him, he lets his forehead touch hers. “Do you… want me to come with you? Next weekend.”

“Yes,” she whispers. He hears a tinge of anticipation in her voice. “I think that would be best.”

Jaime smiles. “Okay.”

Then, Brienne squeezes her eyes shut, as if bracing herself for some impact. “I guess I should call to let him know.”

She opens her eyes again, and reaches over to the bedside table to grab her phone. Jaime watches her intently as she searches for her father’s number, hits the call button, and puts the phone to her ear while it rings. He has the thought that _this_, more so than meeting her friends or deciding to move in with her, is a milestone that will make everything _real_. Though he’s been to Tarth once before, this still feels like the first thing they’ve done that’s pushing beyond the borders of _them_, just the two of them, and beyond the borders of the office, where everything began.

“Morning Dad.”

Jaime hears a faint greeting in response. Tinny as those sounds are, he can tell that the man on the other end of the line—whom he knows only as the picture on her bookshelf—is the proud owner of a voice that can only be described as _booming_.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Brienne answers. “I’m thinking of heading back next weekend.” She nods at Jaime, so her father must have agreed. “Okay. I’ll see you Saturday then. And, um—is it okay if I… bring a friend?”

_Friend?_ Jaime mouths, with a smirk, which prompts Brienne to push her hand into his face.

“No, not Marg. I’m—um, I’m seeing someone. A… man.” She winces. “No, not _Renly_. Gods, Dad, you know he’s with Loras.”

Jaime points at himself and mouths, _upgrade_. Brienne rolls her eyes, but he can tell she’s trying not to smile.

“Staying over? Oh, um—”

She gives Jaime a searching look, and he shrugs. _Your call_.

“Okay. Yeah, sure. We’ll stay over. Alright, bye dad.”

As soon as she hangs up, Brienne throws her phone back on the bedside table, then covers her face with her hands _again_, for what feels like the twentieth time in the past ten minutes. “Why did I say we would stay over?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t know! Is it weird? It’s weird.” She turns to face him. “You can’t—you’re not allowed to touch me for the whole weekend.”

“_What_?” For the whole—_what?_ “You can’t be serious!”

“I’ll text my dad to prepare the guest bedroom, and we won’t touch each other, and everything in that house will remain completely pure and chaste and innocent and it’ll be _fine_.”

In truth, Jaime knows he would be horrified if his own father had even the most tangential knowledge of his sex life. But his brain is currently stuck on the fact that Brienne is attempting to _ban him from touching her for an entire weekend._

“Can I kiss you at least?”

“Yes.” _Oh thank—_ “But no tongue inside the house and within a—a fifty-foot radius of the property. At all times.”

_No._ They’ve been kissing _with _tongue since their first date. He sandwiches her cheeks between his hands. “Brienne. Listen to yourself. You’re planning on torturing me.”

“Oh, you’ll survive,” she replies dismissively.

“I won’t.” He leans in to kiss her, _with _tongue. “I’ll die.” He kisses her again. If she won’t abandon this stupid idea, he needs to get in as many as possible before next weekend.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Jaime,” she says, though the tip of her tongue darts out to lick her lips.

“_You’re_ the one being dramatic! Your father knows what happens when two consenting adults—”

“Shhh!” Brienne shrugs her face from his hands and plugs her fingers in her ears.

Jaime yanks one finger out. “So, we’re not going to tell him we’re moving in together then?”

Brienne groans. “I don’t know, can we do that in ten years?”

“Oh, you mean _after_ we already have three kids—”

They both freeze.

_Oh gods. Oh gods oh gods oh gods._ He truly hadn’t meant anything by it, except to prove a point in the heat of the moment and—

Brienne’s expression is unreadable.

“Um—” Jaime stutters, “I didn’t mean to—”

“Shall we mutually agree to forget you said that and table that conversation until an indefinite point very far into the future?” Brienne declares. Is it possible to sound both completely firm and utterly rattled in the same breath? Because that’s exactly what she sounded like.

“Yes,” Jaime hastily replies. “Agreed.”

“Breakfast?” Brienne asks, sitting up quickly and swinging her legs out of bed.

“Breakfast,” Jaime repeats. He had wanted to stay in bed with Brienne all morning, but he thinks, given what just slipped out of his mouth, it might be wise right now to fill their time with something other than that.

Thankfully, by the time they’ve boarded the ferry to Tarth on Saturday morning, Jaime has managed to convince Brienne to exercise some leniency with regard to her ‘no touching’ rule. He’s not sure she’s quite ready to share a bed with him in her father’s house—as far as he knows, she _did_ instruct her father to prepare the guest bedroom—but the ‘no tongue’ sub-rule has been scrapped, to his immense relief.

Like the first time he visited the island, they’re blessed with good weather, and the forecast says it’ll hold out for the weekend. Jaime isn’t superstitious by any means, but he thinks this bodes well for his meeting with Selwyn Tarth. Still, he’s nervous. He’s wearing his White Shirt™, sleeves rolled up past his elbows as usual, but he’s left none of its buttons unbuttoned, rather than his customary three. Best to err on the side of conservative.

Brienne has not stopped blushing about this impending meeting since they got out of bed. Her skin is glowing pink all over, and he can tell that it’s making her feel even more self-conscious than usual, but Jaime is quite enjoying this ruddiness to her complexion. He won’t tell her this—she’ll only blush even more—but he thinks she looks radiant in her light blue dress, with its short sleeves and V-neck and that hem hitting just above the knee. It’s something he had tailored for her a few weeks ago, with a soft linen fabric Brienne picked out herself. Unsurprisingly, she’d been embarrassed by the idea that she’d be worth the effort and expense of a custom-made garment—even one as simple as this, which even Brienne agreed didn’t cost very much at all for something she might wear quite often. But Jaime had persuaded her to consider that there are options beyond the off-the-rack items that so often disappointed her. And this dress isn’t disappointing in the least, to her _or_ to him.

Jaime spends much of their journey kissing her, just in case she panics later and reinstates the ‘no tongue’ sub-rule, or worse. Though, with the way Brienne’s looking at him now—she seems so _alive_, so drunk on sunlight, on kisses, on _him_—Jaime suspects he won’t be the only one tortured by her regulations.

When they step off the ferry, Jaime spots the sign that says, **WELCOME TO TARTH**, _The Sapphire Isle_—the sign that had first given him the chance to compliment Brienne’s eyes. He can’t help but smile to himself as he thinks of it, until he realises there is a man standing under that sign. A very tall man, an _immense_ man, with hair the light blonde of Brienne’s and eyes the same blue, and his arms folded tightly across his chest. On a normal day, perhaps this man might be what some might call a gentle giant. But today, Selwyn Tarth is eyeing him with the judgmental gaze of an overprotective father.

Jaime gulps.

“Hey Dad,” Brienne greets him once they approach, and Selwyn finally unfolds his arms to give his daughter a big hug. Jaime looks down to see Selwyn has lifted her a few inches off the ground.

“Hi Brie. It’s good to see you.” He releases Brienne and runs his eyes over her in her blue dress. “You look very pretty.”

“Oh—th-thanks,” she replies, and casts a grateful glance at Jaime. She’s about to introduce him when her father turns to Jaime, runs his eyes over him as well, and says:

“So do you.”

It sounds far more like suspicion than praise.

“Dad!” Brienne scolds.

“Thank you?” Jaime says, thinking it better to acknowledge it as a compliment regardless. He holds out his hand. “Jaime Lannister. It’s good to finally meet you, ser.”

“Lannister. Of Lannister Corp?” Selwyn asks, lifting an eyebrow. His arms remain by his side.

“Yes.” He’s not sure how much he should say—doesn’t want to sound like he’s bragging about his family—so he settles on, “I’m heading the Stormlands office.” He leaves his arm outstretched.

Finally, Selwyn grasps his hand and gives it a firm shake. “Welcome. First time to the island?”

“Second. Brienne brought me here just over—” at which point Brienne elbows him in the side, so _three months ago_ comes out in a wheeze.

“Did she? Why didn’t I hear about this, Brie?”

“Oh, um—you were busy that weekend, and I, I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It’s never a bother to see my own daughter. Even with a date in tow.” Selwyn gives Jaime another assessing look.

“We weren’t technically dating yet,” Brienne mumbles.

“Interesting. Seems there’s a lot you haven’t told me.” He stays silent for a moment, as if to let his words sink in. “Come along then,” he eventually says, taking Brienne’s overnight bag from her hands, though he leaves Jaime to carry his own. Then, he turns and walks in the direction of the row of parked cars nearby.

“I thought you said your dad was nice!” Jaime whispers to Brienne, as they trail behind Selwyn.

“He _is_,” she whispers back, equally perplexed. “I told you, I’ve never talked to him about this stuff, let alone brought a man home. I didn’t know what to expect.”

“Was I supposed to lie about last time? You should have told me that in advance if you wanted me to!”

“No—I, I’m sorry, I panicked!”

Selwyn pauses and turns back to them. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing, Dad,” Brienne replies weakly. Selwyn grunts and continues walking towards the car.

The drive to the Tarth family home is a scenic one, though Jaime has to enjoy it alone from the backseat. Selwyn had opened the front passenger door for Brienne, and it was clear that she was to sit upfront with her father, with Jaime in the back. She could only smile apologetically at Jaime before getting into the car. Jaime doesn’t mind—he doesn’t think he should overstep, first of all, and he is also perfectly content to look out the window and silently appreciate the landscape. He does so for the first part of the drive, half-listening as Selwyn updates Brienne on developments in the community.

During a break in the conversation, Brienne pointedly remarks that Jaime didn’t have a chance to see the whole island last time. Selwyn doesn’t seem to take her hint at first, but after a brief pause, he begins to gruffly comment on a few landmarks they drive past, in between narrating a fragmented history of the island. He keeps this going for the rest of the drive around the southern tip, towards Tarth’s eastern coast. It’s something, Jaime thinks, if not exactly a warm welcome.

When they arrive at the Tarth family home, Jaime gets out of the car and—

his jaw drops.

It’s—it’s so much bigger than he imagined. Brienne had spoken fondly of her memories growing up on Tarth, but she had always referred to the house itself in such a modest way that Jaime had taken to envisioning it as a quaint cottage. This is most certainly _not_ a quaint cottage. Three storeys high, maybe four if there’s an attic, and there must be six or seven bedrooms at least. He even catches glimpses of what looks to be a sizeable and well-landscaped garden out back. There isn’t a direct view of the sea, at least from where he’s standing, but from what Jaime can hear of the waves, the water can’t be very far off.

“You have a very lovely home, ser,” he tells Selwyn, remembering his manners.

“Thank you,” Selwyn acknowledges. “I’m just going to put the roast in the oven, and then I can show you to your room.”

Well, that settles the question of whether he’ll be sharing a room with Brienne tonight, but Jaime is still too astonished to feel much disappointment. “Hells, Brienne,” he says under his breath, when she comes up beside him. “I didn’t expect it to be quite so… big.”

“Oh.” She shuffles her feet. “Well, it takes a lot of time and money to maintain it, but it’s… it’s the only thing our family has owned for generations. It’s basically all we have. My dad won’t sell it, even though he’s the only one living here. He’s poured everything into it.”

“It’s beautiful. Do you ever see yourself moving back here?”

“Maybe. At some point. Depending on—how my life works out.”

She casts a glance at Jaime.

Inside the house, the furnishings are simple and tasteful, though perhaps a little dated. There’s something about it that reminds Jaime that only one man lives here—parts of the house that look sparsely furnished and rarely used—yet there’s still a warmth that permeates everything. And it’s a warmth that Jaime recognises—the one that he feels in Brienne’s apartment. It makes this place seem familiar, though he’s never set foot in it before today.

He stops before a wall filled with family pictures, and points at one of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby. “Is this you?” he asks Brienne.

“Galladon,” she says, and points at another picture below it, of a toddler. “That’s me.”

“Very cute.”

“I was _not_.”

“Oh, don’t start. Is that you too?” He points to a picture of a very tall young person, with messy blonde hair down to their broad shoulders, being awkwardly crushed in a bear hug by Selwyn.

Brienne nods. “I was thirteen, I think. There aren’t many of me after that. I… didn’t like being photographed.”

She still doesn’t. But at least she doesn’t mind so much anymore when Jaime snaps photos of her with his phone. As long as it stays between the two of them.

“My family home doesn’t have pictures,” Jaime remarks, offhandedly. “Not like this. The few that exist are very… formal.”

Brienne slips her hand around his forearm, and gives it a squeeze.

“Well, Jaime,” he hears Selwyn from behind him. “Let me show you to your room.”

The room that Selwyn has prepared for Jaime seems calculated to be the furthest one possible from Brienne’s. It’s on a different floor entirely, and though it’s quite large and has a nice view of the garden, it’s just so _far_ from Brienne. Jaime pouts at her when her father isn’t looking, which earns him one of her eye rolls.

“Lunch will be ready in an hour,” Selwyn tells them, before heading back downstairs.

Jaime turns to Brienne once her father leaves. “I want to see your room. Is it embarrassing? Please tell me it’s embarrassing.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s very boring. I cleaned it up a few years ago. Everything embarrassing went into a big box that now sits in the back of my closet.”

“Well, I’ll just have to find that box then,” Jaime says, as he runs out of his room in the direction of hers.

“No! Jaime—” he hears Brienne cry out, but he ignores her and keeps running. He thought he had a good head start too, yet Brienne somehow manages to propel herself into her room just before he can enter. She plasters herself against her closet door.

“Do _not_ come any closer,” she warns.

“Wow—_that _embarrassing?” he laughs. “Don’t worry, I won’t invade Teenage Brienne’s privacy. For now.”

“For_ever_.”

“For _now_.”

Jaime lets his eyes wander about her room. The walls are painted a calming blue—the colour matches her dress quite well, actually—while everything else seems to have been made of solid wood, then painted a pristine white. The bedframe, the bedside table, the bookshelf, the desk, the dresser, the closet doors—all white against the blue walls, besides the odd brass fitting on drawers and such. Even the white window frame is framed by soft white curtains with faint blue stripes.

“Is this how your room has always looked?”

“Pretty much.” She steps away from the closet doors, and runs a finger along the surface of her desk. “It was always my sanctuary.”

“I like it. It’s very… peaceful. Romantic, even.” He walks over to the window. “Oh, and you can see the sea from here.”

“Yeah,” Brienne sighs, wistfully. “It’s what I miss most about this room.”

Jaime looks back at her. “We can find a place with a view of the sea if you like. Might not be quite as close to the water as this, but we could try.”

He prepares himself for some comment about the extravagance of buying an apartment with ocean views. But Brienne just smiles and says, “I’d like that.”

“Good.” He launches himself onto her bed. “Mm. Comfy, but it would have been too small for the both of us anyway. I’d definitely fall off this one.”

Brienne goes red. “_Jaime_.”

Jaime reclines seductively—or in a manner that he _thinks_ is seductive—and drawls, “Would Teenage Brienne be scandalised by the presence of such a beautiful man in her bed?”

She puts her hand to her forehead. “Every time I think I have a grasp on the size of your ego,” she groans, “you go and say something like _that_.”

“Hey, as long as you have a grasp on the size of my—”

“Jaime!”

He laughs. “Come here, Brienne. Kiss me here. If I’m to be apart from you for one night—”

“Oh stop,” she replies, though she’s already come right up to the edge of the bed. “It’s not like we spend every night together.”

“And those one or two nights a week are painful enough. Indulge me.”

He pulls on her hand, and she relents. Her bed would indeed be too small for an entire night’s sleep, but for a few minutes of this, it’ll do.

An hour later, they’ve seated themselves at the dining table, where Selwyn is carving up the roast. It just so happens that Jaime brought a bottle of Dornish red as a gift, which should go well with the beef, so Brienne opens the bottle and pours three glasses.

“Thank you for preparing lunch,” Jaime says to Selwyn.

“You’re welcome. I do a mean roast beef, and I’m happy to share it. It’ll taste great with the wine, I’m sure.”

It’s the most pleasant thing that Brienne’s father has said to him so far, and as they help themselves to the food, Jaime feels somewhat assured that Selwyn seems to be warming up to him.

That is, until the questions begin.

“So, how old are you, Jaime?” Selwyn asks, as he cuts the meat on his plate.

“Thirty-four, ser,” Jaime replies.

“Really?” Selwyn puts a piece of beef in his mouth, and takes the time to chew. When he’s swallowed, he remarks, “Almost a decade older than Brienne.”

“Well, it’s actually less than nine years if you take into account our namedays—” Jaime starts to explain, before noticing Selwyn’s unblinking gaze. “Yes, almost a decade,” he quickly agrees.

“This is delicious, Dad,” Brienne comments suddenly.

“Yes, it’s very delicious,” Jaime echoes. “The potatoes too. And the vegetables.”

“Thank you.” Without skipping a beat, Selwyn moves on to his next question. “And you head the Stormlands office, you said? Where Brienne works.”

“Yes. I moved here about eight months ago, from King’s Landing.”

“You left the capital?”

“Yes, I—I wanted a change of scenery.”

“And it’s fine for a boss to date his employee, is it?”

“Dad!” Brienne hisses.

“I’m just asking,” Selwyn says, calmly.

“There’s no policy against it,” Brienne asserts. “And we don’t—we don’t work together directly anyway.”

“I see.” Selwyn takes a sip of his wine. “I’m not too familiar with the inner workings of large corporations,” he says, “but you’re quite young to be heading the entire office, aren’t you?”

“It’s not unheard of, especially for the smaller offices, but—” Jaime sighs. He supposes he has to reveal this sooner or later. “I was brought up in this business. Tywin Lannister is my father.”

“Tywin—you’re the son of the owner of Lannister Corp?”

“Yes, ser.”

“You’re _that_ Jaime Lannister?”

Jaime grimaces. “Yes, ser.” He hopes Selwyn isn’t a reader of the tabloids that have occasionally sensationalised, or outright lied about his private life in the past fifteen years, whenever they’ve run out of more famous celebrities to slander.

“And you’re here. In the Stormlands.”

“Yes, ser,” he repeats. “Things are—complicated, in King’s Landing. I much prefer the work here. The pace of it. I hope to stay as long as possible.”

“Complicated? How so?”

“More wine, anyone?” Brienne interrupts, before Jaime can figure out how he could possibly respond without seeming too evasive, while still avoiding the thorny details of Lannister family politics. “Dad, would you like more wine?” she offers.

“Sure, Brie.” Selwyn pushes his glass over to her.

Although Brienne’s intervention is enough to distract Selwyn from his earlier question, lunch continues in much the same way. _What exactly does your job entail? Where do you live? How long have you two been dating? And is this a serious relationship for you?_

“Dad!” Brienne exclaims again, at the same time as Jaime says, “_Of course it is._” He might have said that with too much vehemence, but he is more offended by this question than any of the ones before. He knows Selwyn can tell, because there’s something in the man’s gaze that seems to shift after that.

When they’re done with their meal, Brienne volunteers to do the washing up. Jaime is about to offer to help her when Selwyn invites him for a walk in the garden.

“Just the two of us,” Selwyn says, pointedly, as he leads Jaime towards the door that leads out back. “Brie, I can wash up later.”

“It’s fine, I’ll do it.”

Jaime looks back at her as he walks towards the door with her father, and mouths, _I’m scared._

_You’ll be fine_, she mouths back, but he sees the worry in her eyes.

Once Selwyn closes the door behind him, he starts off with: “I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh on you, Jaime.”

“Oh—it’s alright, ser.”

“Let’s stop with that ‘ser’ business, shall we?” Selwyn claps Jaime on the back. “Makes me feel quite old. ‘Selwyn’ is fine.”

Jaime nods, still confused by the sudden change in the man’s demeanour.

“Anyway.” Selwyn walks ahead onto the lawn. “I apologise for the interrogation. But my daughter—well, Brienne is the only person I have left in this world. She is—” he turns back to Jaime— “she’s been hurt in the past. I assume you’re aware of this?”

“Yes, ser—I mean, Selwyn,” Jaime corrects, as he catches up.

“Cruel boys playing cruel tricks. It’s made it difficult for her to open her heart to anyone. Though she tells her poor old dad nothing.” Selwyn sighs. “You’re the first man she’s ever brought home. I suppose—I want to make sure she won’t get hurt.”

“I’ll never hurt her.” Jaime feels the truth of his words as they leave his lips. “I only want to make her happy.”

“Mm. Well, we can’t ever know what the future will bring, but—that’s good. I’m glad to hear that.” Selwyn pats Jaime on the back again as they stroll together. “The way she looks at you…”

“Yes,” Jaime says, before Selwyn can finish his sentence. He thinks of Brienne’s eyes—how they shine when they’re filled with pure, incandescent delight.

“How did this happen, anyway? The two of you. She said you don’t work together directly.”

Jaime can’t help but laugh, a little nervously. “Well—I said some… things to her at an office party. Things I shouldn’t have said, and didn’t particularly mean.” Selwyn is giving him a funny look now, and Jaime hopes he doesn’t press for details. “I was drunk, we all were, it’s not an excuse but—I was going through something at the time.” Jaime looks down at his feet as he walks, how one steps in front of the other on the lush, freshly cut grass. “Anyway,” he clears his throat, “she punched me.”

Selwyn stops in his tracks. “She _what_?”

Jaime stops too, and looks the man straight in the eye. “She punched me. And I deserved it.”

Selwyn is quiet for what seems like an age. Then, he lets out a deep guffaw. “She punched you!” he exclaims, when he’s caught his breath. “And now you two are—” he starts bellowing again, and says something that sounds suspiciously like _that’s my girl_.

The man’s laugh is infectious, and Jaime finds himself chuckling too. “Yes,” he confirms, “we are.”

When they finally return to the house, Brienne is staring at them anxiously. Jaime can tell she’s trying to analyse their every move. He nods at her, and smiles. She heaves a sigh of relief.

Late in the afternoon, Brienne proposes that they drive over to her favourite meadow to catch the sunset, and Jaime readily agrees. It feels just like that Saturday from a few months before. They lie in the grass and look up in the sky, just like they did that day. They listen to the sounds of the island, just like they did that day.

“I wanted very badly to kiss you when we were last here,” Jaime says to the clouds, after a long while.

“Me too,” Brienne replies.

He’s surprised by this—he remembers how she had stood up abruptly just as he was mulling the possibility of kissing her. “Why didn’t you?” he asks, turning towards her.

“I was—I was scared. I liked spending time with you, but I didn’t want to assume. I was… afraid of assuming. Of being wrong.”

“Does it please my lady Evenstar to know that you would have been right?”

Brienne laughs. “There have been no Evenstars for a long time, Jaime.”

“I like thinking of you as the Evenstar. It pleases _me_.”

He reaches over then, and tries to pull her onto him.

“What are you doing?” she laughs again.

“What I should have done all those months ago.”

“We only had a _one week delay_ on that kiss.”

“Still. It’s one more week I could have spent kissing you.”

“Mm.” Brienne taps his nose with her finger. “That would have been very pleasurable.”

“Do you think we’d have bumped our heads together if we had our first kiss here?”

She giggles and buries her head in his chest. “Probably.”

Jaime’s fingers find Brienne’s chin, and he nudges her head up. He can’t fathom ever tiring of kissing her. He moves to capture her lips with his—

and comes up with an even better idea.

“Hey,” he says, gently pushing her windswept hair out of her eyes. “I love you.”

Brienne doesn’t reply.

_Okay, maybe this wasn’t a better idea._

She’s still just staring at him, in something that seems like disbelief. Jaime feels compelled to fill the silence.

“Um. You don’t have to say it back, or anything like that. I… I just wanted you to know.”

A few seconds later, she nods. “Thank you.”

Well, it’s not the ideal response. But she also didn’t start running to the cliffside to fling herself off, so there’s that.

She does kiss him at least. It’s a good kiss—with tongue—and it’s some consolation. She gives him another, and another, and he happily returns the favour. It is only a thousand kisses later that Jaime realises the sky has turned a deep orange. By the time they’ve made it to the cliff’s edge, the sun is already halfway below the horizon.

For dinner, Selwyn brings them to his favourite pub, a large and friendly establishment that—judging by the number of people in attendance—seems to be the preferred gathering point of the entirety of Tarth’s population. Jaime is introduced to everyone as ‘Brie’s man’, and he tells her later that he might like that better than ‘partner’. By the end of the night, everyone knows that Jaime’s eye was once on the receiving end of Brienne’s fist. “A romance for the ages,” someone jokes, to a roar of laughter, to Jaime and Selwyn’s glee, to Brienne’s immense embarrassment. It’s almost enough to make Jaime forget her underwhelming reaction to his declaration.

It’s past ten when they return to the house. They all say their goodnights and head for their respective bedrooms—Jaime more reluctantly than either of the Tarths. When he’s washed and changed, he climbs into his bed and—gods, all he can think about is how _empty_ it is. It’s much bigger than the one in Brienne’s room, he observes, as he lies in the middle and stretches out all four limbs to all four corners. He wishes she were there to share it with him.

_Fuck it_, he thinks, as he reaches for his phone. He’s just about to text her to come up to his room when there’s a soft knock at his door. It creaks open before he can issue any invitation to the person on the other side.

“Did I say you could come in?” he teases, as Brienne steals in and closes the door quietly behind her.

“Oh shut up,” she replies. “Move over.”

Jaime gladly obeys. “What happened to ‘no touching’?” he asks, as she climbs in beside him.

He expects her to say something snarky in response, but she just snakes her arm around his waist, and buries her face in his neck.

“I was just about to text you to come over,” he says into her hair.

“Good thing I can read your mind then,” she mumbles back.

“Oh, so this is for my benefit, is it?”

“I could feel you missing me all the way from my bedroom.”

“I think that was _you_, Brienne,” Jaime chuckles softly.

Brienne is quiet for a moment. Then, she shifts back so she can look at him.

“Jaime—about earlier.” She bites her lip.

He brushes his thumb across her cheek. “You mean… what I said in the meadow?”

Brienne nods. “I was just shocked and—I’m sorry I couldn’t say it back.”

“Oh—I said you didn’t have to—”

She puts a finger to his lips.

“I love you.”

Those three words ring in his ears.

“… Oh,” is all Jaime can say, when Brienne moves her finger away. He understands now how this could have rendered her speechless. “Okay then.”

“‘Okay then’?” she whispers. “I think you’re supposed to say ‘I love you too.’”

“Really?” He brings his hand to his chin, and holds it as if deep in thought. “I was under the impression that the right response was ‘Thank you.’”

She shoves him backwards. “Shut _up_, Jaime.”

“You _wish_. I’ll never let it go.” _Or you._

“Fine then.” Brienne tosses the duvet off her. “I’m going back to my room.”

“No!”

Jaime grasps her arm, and tugs her laughing back into bed.

“I love you. Stay with me.”

So she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes these two are so cute they make me wanna throw up, and I'm the author of this fic lol
> 
> And I REALLY need to get back to The Assignment now, but there'll be more to come eventually!


	16. A man and a woman contend with a beard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you saw this for a few minutes and it disappeared, I messed up the posting the first time!
> 
> The genesis of this chapter was a conversation I had with [dunderklumpen](https://dunderklumpen.net/) on Tumblr about Nik’s excellent beard in [that Leeds United video](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/51002677) from a couple of weeks back, so this is dedicated to her. That conversation inspired a [350-word ficlet](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/post/190120906015/yesterday-nik-waxes-lyrical-about-leeds-united), which grew into this 6k word behemoth. About a beard.
> 
> (Oh, and the emojis make a triumphant return!)

** DAY 0 **

“Hey,” Jaime says one Friday morning, as he looks in the bathroom mirror and runs his fingers along his chin. “Thoughts on a beard?”

Over his shoulder, he sees Brienne’s head emerge from her towel, her mussed hair still damp from her shower. “What?”

He turns to face her, taking a moment to silently congratulate himself on his ability to function in Brienne’s presence. Specifically, in a _naked_ Brienne’s presence. It’s been two months since they first saw all of each other—two months of doing so much more than just _seeing_—yet he still finds, on occasion, that he can’t _think_ when she’s bare before him. Brienne is just so protective of her body, so much of the time, and seeing her like this—her skin pink, not from blushing, but from the heat of her shower, from the friction of towelling herself dry—the stray droplets of water she hasn’t yet wiped away, running down her arm, her thigh—

“Hello?” Brienne knocks her knuckles lightly between his brows. “anyone there?”

Jaime clears his throat. “Sorry.”

She sighs as she slings her towel around her neck. “We said we wouldn’t get weird about this.”

By ‘this’, she means using the bathroom at the same time to get ready in the mornings. Or, to be more specific, using the bathroom _without_ Jaime initiating any… well, any _carnal_ distractions, so to speak. Which was exactly what he had eagerly done in the aftermath of The Weekend Sextravaganza (as Jaime has taken to calling it, to Brienne’s mortification—and, he’s convinced, at least some degree of arousal). This went on for three weeks, until Brienne decided to issue an indefinite moratorium on simultaneous bathroom usage. She refused to budge even when Jaime pointed out that, from a purely practical point-of-view, they could both get more sleep in the mornings if she takes her showers _while_ he’s engaging in his extensive grooming rituals.

(He’d also offered not to touch her at all when they’re both in the bathroom, but she responded only with a withering look. He couldn’t blame her for that—he wouldn’t trust himself either.)

Overall, Jaime hadn’t felt very bothered by the moratorium—not consciously, anyway. Besides, he had few complaints about anything that happened _outside_ of the bathroom. Yet he was still relieved when, a few more weeks later, Brienne was finally able to articulate her discomfort. _The time I spend in there, _she told him one evening, _it’s supposed to be safe for me. Somewhere I can be… with my body, without feeling seen. And you being there—and… wanting me—makes me feel seen. Regardless of what we do or don’t do. _It didn’t matter that he’d already seen her, that she allows him to see her regularly. _What I’d really like, _she’d said, _is for me to not feel seen even when I’m around you. Even when we’re doing nothing. Even when there’s nothing to distract me from myself. Does that make sense?_

There’s a different kind of intimacy, they realised, in sharing a space and time that would otherwise be occupied by a single person—an intimacy in two people _overlapping_, rather than necessarily _joining_. It’s a kind of intimacy that doesn’t always follow from sexual intimacy. A different way to be vulnerable with another person.

Even after that conversation, Jaime wasn’t sure if Brienne would lift the moratorium. But the next morning, she simply opened the bathroom door and stepped into the shower while Jaime was still busying himself at the sink. Since then, they’ve been figuring it out slowly, with practice. Jaime had promised Brienne he wouldn’t ‘get weird’ in the bathroom, and she had promised him the same.

“No weirdness,” Jaime affirms, and puts his palms over his eyes. “I’m blind to your body’s many charms.”

He hears a soft snicker, then feels fingers circle his wrists. “I forgive you,” Brienne says, pulling his hands down. “What were you saying?”

“Oh.” He’d almost forgotten. “What do you think about me growing a beard?”

Brienne tilts her head and squints. “I don’t know.” She lifts her hands to his face, places them in various formations along his jawline. “Could work. You’ve never grown one?”

Jaime shakes his head. “My father always wanted me clean-shaven. My sister too. Something about _maintaining an image_. Mine, or the company’s, or—”

Something tickles at the edge of his mind—some sense that Cersei’s persuasion had less to do with what looks best for _him_, and more to do with preserving his resemblance to _her_. There were things she had said that hadn’t seemed strange to him at the time, but now…

“Huh,” Brienne cuts through his thoughts, and his sister dissipates. “Doesn’t your father have a—”

“Yup.” He lets his lips make an audible ‘pop’ at the end of his answer.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand your family,” she sighs.

“I hope you never do.” Understanding Lannisters requires a capacity to grasp their logic—and to be blind to how warped that logic really is. “You wouldn’t be _you_ if you understood us.”

Brienne shrugs, and pats him on the cheek. “So, you woke up this morning and just decided you wanted a beard?” she teases. “Or is this the result of some intense soul-searching? All those _deep conversations_ you have with your own reflection?”

“How did you know—” _Oh hells, she _doesn’t_ know. _There’s no possible way she could have known about that little voice in his head—at least, not until now. “I mean—I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Brienne just flashes him a wicked grin, one that says: _I may never understand Lannisters, but I understand you just fine._

Jaime turns away from her—a little petulantly, he’ll concede—and faces the mirror again. “It’s just something I’ve thought about on and off over the years,” he says, pawing at his chin. “We have Monday off, and I don’t have any meetings Tuesday, miraculously. Thought I’d take the opportunity.” He does have to shave every morning—he’s already done so today—so he’s pretty sure a beard will grow out fairly quickly. He should have _some_ idea of what it might look like by Wednesday, at least.

“Grow one if you want,” Brienne says breezily, and goes back to drying her hair. “We’ll see how it looks.”

Jaime sidles up to her, remembering at the last second to keep his hands to himself. “You say that as if I could ever look anything less than _good_,” he says into her ear, in his sultriest voice.

She swats him in the face with the end of her towel. “Just for that line, I’m going to hope you look _ridiculous_.”

**DAY 3**

He won’t look ridiculous.

It’s only Monday—the third day since he stopped shaving—and she already knows he won’t look ridiculous.

_Damn him._ Maybe she should feel lucky, since she’s the one who gets to enjoy it most of all, but _damn him anyway._

She wants to punch him in the face again, for entirely different reasons. She might do it too, if she could just stop freezing up every time they made eye contact.

Gods. She can’t remember ever being so nervous around him. It’s not even because she’s being _blinded by his beauty_ or anything silly like that. Well, alright, maybe that’s a teeny tiny part of it. But mostly, she’s just trying _so hard_ not to give Jaime the satisfaction of seeing any increase in her attraction. It’s just a beard, for Seven’s sake. A beard that’s barely grown.

_Damn Jaime Lannister. Damn his stupid, handsome, golden face with his stupid, barely grown, unreasonably attractive beard._

This is worse than when they were still doing their dance in the office.

“You’re acting weird,” Jaime says, while he’s driving them to their first viewing appointment of the day. Today’s a holiday for pretty much all of Westeros, except, apparently, for property agents who have clients as rich as Jaime Lannister. Normally, Brienne would question the ethics of requesting their agent to work on a national holiday, but normally, Jaime isn’t growing a beard. She is inordinately glad that they have three appointments lined up—at least if they have to look at apartments and houses, it means she doesn’t have to look at Jaime’s stupid face.

“I’m fine,” she replies. It comes out oddly high-pitched.

“Mm. You sound _completely_ fine.” Jaime reaches a hand over to her thigh, and she nearly jumps at his touch, though it doesn’t seem meant to be anything other than reassuring. He takes his eyes off the road for a second to frown at her. “Are you worried about the viewings?”

_No, it’s not the viewings. It’s that thrice-damned ghost of a beard. _But they’ve seen a handful of disappointing places over the past couple of weekends, places that were too big or fancy for Brienne’s tastes, too rustic or old for Jaime’s, or just plain _bizarre_—yes, _bizarre_, especially that one apartment that had fallen victim to a particularly eccentric interior designer. So if she tells Jaime it’s the viewings, he’ll probably believe her.

(Oh, and there was that one house that _might_ have had some kind of sex dungeon. They don’t talk about that house.)

“Yes,” she lies. “Just anxious. We haven’t seen a place yet that we both like.”

“We’ll find a place,” Jaime declares. “Maybe not today, but we will.”

“This is why I wanted to rent.” Brienne doesn’t want to bring this up again—they’d _negotiated_—but it’s out of her mouth before she can stop herself. She knows she’s being a child, and she knows it’s stupid for a _beard_ to make her regress into being a child, but— “I feel like I’m putting so much pressure on this one place to be _The Place_. Maybe I’d be more flexible if it didn’t feel so permanent.”

“Why do I feel like we’ve had this conversation before?”

“I know,” Brienne sighs. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t be so picky—”

“You _should_,” Jaime says, with such intensity that she almost jumps again. “I don’t want you to settle.”

“I’m not talking about _settling_, Jaime. Just… _compromise_.”

“I don’t think you should compromise, either. It should feel right to you—to both of us. You can always move in with me if we can’t find something before your lease is up.”

“I know,” she repeats. She _knows_. It’s just—

It’s the _beard_. It’s not an excuse, but it’s the shameful truth.

The one house and two apartments they see that afternoon aren’t too big or fancy, and they aren’t too rustic or old, and they aren’t bizarre either. They’re fine. But that’s all they are—_fine_. They don’t feel _right_. Whenever she meets Jaime’s eyes—that is, whenever she’s able to meet his eyes while mentally blanking out everything on his face below his nose—she knows they don’t feel right to him too.

“It’s the ocean,” Brienne realises, when they’re sitting in the car after their last appointment. “Or lack thereof. At least, I think that’s what’s bothering me.”

“Hmm.”

She smacks his arm with the brochure she’s still holding from their second viewing, which really was a perfectly agreeable two-bedroom apartment, in a newly completed development no less. “It’s _your _fault.”

“How the hells is this _my_ fault?” Jaime sputters.

“You put that ‘view of the sea’ nonsense in my head. Now I can’t stop thinking about it.” _Among other things. _“It’s supposed to be a luxury, not a deal-breaker.”

“If it’s a deal-breaker, then it’s a deal-breaker. You don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

Brienne huffs wordlessly in response. That’s the talk of an astronomically rich person. That’s the talk of an astronomically rich person with the beginnings of a beard that’s going to destroy her very being. Jaime’s wealth and facial hair aside, she’s pretty sure that they’ve been focusing their efforts too far inland to find a place with a decent view of the sea. But they’d both agreed that they don’t want to stray too far from the office. So, having a deal-breaker that conflicts with other, more practical deal-breakers may not be shameful, but it certainly isn’t reasonable.

The effects of Jaime’s beard on her, however—that part is still shameful.

“Will you drop me off back home?” she says, suddenly feeling the need to be alone in a place far, far away from Jaime.

“You’re not staying over?”

“It’s—it’s Monday.” _Yes, Monday night, her solo gym night, that’s exactly why. _She can’t even remember if her gym is open on holidays. “Gym night,” she says anyway.

“Oh.” _Oh gods, he has that lost puppy look._ “Can I stay over?”

“N-no.”

“Why not?”

“Um. I have—I have stuff to do.”

“What stuff?”

“Um—I need to pack. For the move.” _For the move that is at least two months away._

“I can help you.”

“No!” she almost shouts, and Jaime raises an eyebrow. _Wonderful, Brienne, just wonderful. This isn’t weird at all. _“I mean—this is something I need to do on my own.”

“Are we doing dinner at least?”

“No—I, I still have leftovers. From yesterday’s lunch.” She is so thankful right now that the restaurant gave them such huge servings.

“Okay…” Jaime is still giving her his lost puppy look. He’s a lost _and_ confused puppy. Oh, it’s _lethal_ when combined with the beard; she needs to get _so far away_. “Are you mad about the sea view thing?” he asks. “Or did I do something else wrong?”

_Yes. You decided to grow a beard._ “No—I just, I want to have some time to myself. I don’t have much more time in my own apartment as it is.”

“You’ll tell me if I did something, right?”

“Of course.” There’s that oddly high-pitched voice again—better if she just stops talking now. She keeps her answers short for the rest of the drive, and when they arrive at her place, she tumbles out of the car with a rushed _loveyouseeyoutomorrow_. It’s only when she’s in the lobby of her building that she realises she never kissed him goodbye.

Okay then. She’s alone. No Jaime, no beard. Brienne pulls up the website of her gym on her phone—oh _brilliant_, it’s closed today. She grabs the leftovers out of the fridge and throws them in the microwave, changes into something more comfortable while her food is heating up, wolfs everything down far too quickly. Then, when the dishes are washed, she walks over to her bookshelf and stares at it. _Packing._ She should be packing. She told Jaime she was going to be packing tonight. She walks into her bedroom and opens her closet. She really doesn’t have much at all. But she said she was going to pack, so she really should pack.

Except she can’t stop thinking about the _beard_.

She didn’t touch Jaime’s face all day today. But she remembers how it felt yesterday. It didn’t feel particularly good—the hairs were still short, rough against her palm—but she’s thinking about it anyway. She hates that she can’t stop thinking about something that didn’t feel particularly good.

Jaime dropped her off more than half an hour ago. He’s long gone by now, and she doesn’t know if she regrets sending him home. The beard is already so _much_, and it’s not even fully grown yet. _It didn’t feel particularly good yesterday_, she reminds herself. But she also finds herself wanting to feel that not-particularly-good feeling in places beards don’t technically belong.

Like between her thighs.

Brienne looks at her bed. She looks at her phone in her hand. She definitely isn’t going to call Jaime back now, and let him lord this over her like the smug egotistical bastard that he is.

Her hand will have to do.

She’s just finding her rhythm—or something as close as possible to Jaime’s rhythm, the way his hand moves on her, _in_ her—his scent on his pillow on his side of her bed—the faint memory of how his stubble felt in her hands yesterday, transferred to the insides of her thighs through the sheer power of imagination—when her phone rings.

_Fuck._

She has half a mind to ignore it, but she glances over to where it’s sitting on her bedside table and sees Jaime’s face on the screen. His clean-shaven face. She’ll need to update that picture soon. She reaches over with her free hand and: “Hel—” _oh gods, my voice_— “hello?”

“Are you sure I didn’t do anything wrong?” Jaime asks, right off the bat.

“Um—uh—yes—” _Shit._ Reluctantly, Brienne removes her other hand from where she really, _really_ needs it most.

“… Are you okay? You sound a bit out of breath.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really.”

“Yes, Jaime.” _Oh fuck, the way she just said his name—_she needs to get out of this bed—

“You sound—you sound like—what are you _doing_?”

“Nothing.” She walks to her closet, opens the doors, closes them again, loud enough for Jaime to hear. “Packing.”

“Brienne. Are you—”

She hangs up.

Jaime calls back immediately, and the next thing he says is in a completely different register than five seconds ago.

“Brienne,” he purrs, and she feels it deep in her traitorous belly, “what are you wearing?”

She hangs up again.

He calls back again.

“Don’t. Start,” she says, before Jaime can get a word in. “You know I hate phone stuff.” All that _description_—just the thought of it makes her self-conscious. Though she feels desperate enough to—_no, Brienne, get a grip._

“I can’t _believe_ you,” he snaps. “You say I can’t stay over, and then I call you and you’re doing _that_. What am I supposed to think?”

“_Oh_—” she might as well admit it— “so I can’t touch myself now because _you_ exist?”

“That is _not_ what I said.” Brienne can hear him mumble something under his breath, something that sounds like _putting words in my mouth_, and when her first thought is that she wants to put something _else_ in his mouth—or rather, put his mouth _on_ something else—she has to utter a silent prayer to the Maiden. “I’m simply pointing out,” he continues, “that you had a more-than-serviceable cock—” oh, she hates him— “among other enthusiastic body parts—” oh, she _really_ hates him— “at your disposal. But you sent that cock home because you said you were going to be _packing_. Which you’re _not_ doing.”

“I—I got distracted.”

“_Obviously_. Well, does that mean I can come up then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m sitting in my car. Downstairs. With said cock.”

“_What?_ Have you been downstairs since you dropped me off?”

“Of course I haven’t. I decided to grab dinner at the seafood place. And then I drove by your gym, and it was closed. So I thought, well, maybe I’ll drive back here and give you a call. See if you changed your mind.”

“In spite of the fact that I was very clear that I wanted space tonight.”

“So you _are_ mad at me.”

“No, I’m not.” It’s surprisingly easy to be firm with Jaime when she doesn’t have to look at his face. “I can say I want space without being mad at you.”

“Okay. Sure. But you’re still acting weird.”

Brienne doesn’t respond to that. What could she possibly say? _I’m having a breakdown because you’re growing a beard_? She hears Jaime heave a sigh. “For the record, I was planning on going home if you said ‘no’.” There’s a long pause. “Are you saying ‘no’?”

_No—no, I’m not saying ‘no’. Yes, Jaime. Please come up. Please._ “Alright, fine,” she finally agrees, trying to infuse her tone with as much reluctance as possible, “you can come up.”

“And stay over?”

_As if I could kick him out of my bed. _Well, she has literally kicked him out of bed before, by accident, but she means it figuratively now. “And stay over. But next time, if I tell you I need space, you need to respect my—hello? Jaime?”

_Did he just_—hells, she really _should_ be more annoyed by Jaime’s behaviour than she generally is. Instead, she finds she is swelling with impatience for his arrival—walking out of her bedroom, walking in circles in her kitchen, walking back and forth between the couch and the door. Until a couple of minutes later, the doorbell rings. Didn’t she give him her spare key weeks ago? He must have it on him; she didn’t have to buzz him up.

“Don’t you have your key?” she demands irritably, when she opens the door, and—oh _gods_, somehow she’d forgotten about the beard in the last few moments and now it’s _right there_.

“I do.” Jaime is rocking slowly on his feet. “But I thought you might prefer to invite me in again.”

She sweeps an arm pointedly in the direction of her bedroom.

“Are you sure?” He leans in slightly, but doesn’t cross the threshold of her front door. “You’re not going to decide you need _space_—”

“Oh for gods’ sakes—” and in one swift motion she yanks him into her apartment, slams her door shut, and kisses him full on the lips. She walks both of them—lips still linked—in the direction of her bedroom, puts her hands on his cheeks as she does so, and, _oh gods_, it still doesn’t feel particularly good, but it also _does_. In fact, she’s prepared to accept that perhaps she only thinks it doesn’t feel particularly good because it feels so unfamiliar. ‘Unfamiliarity’ can be easily addressed with frequent and prolonged exposure.

“You’re very eager this evening,” Jaime breaks away to say, as they enter her bedroom, “Considering you—”

“Too much talking, not enough—” and she looks pointedly down her body. Jaime just smirks and pushes her down to the bed, then he’s stripping her below the waist while she strips herself above it, and he puts his mouth on her navel—his beard scraping along her belly really _shouldn’t_ feel this pleasant—and tries to move upwards to, presumably, her breasts, and wasn’t she _clear_ just now when she looked _downwards_?

“Wrong way,” she whines—_whines_; she’s sunk so low—and when she nudges his head downwards with the heel of her palm, he just lifts his head to smirk at her again, so she glares at him and tries to nudge him down _again_, but he butts his head against her hand because he’s _intolerable_, and “Where exactly do you want me to go, Brienne?” he asks, and oh, she knows he thinks she’s too _shy_ to say it out loud. Normally she would be, but normally Jaime isn’t growing a beard, and she truly can’t bring herself to give much of a fuck right now, so she answers with, “If I don’t have your mouth on my cunt in the next three seconds, Jaime, I swear—”

And he complies.

Jaime was right, of course, about his cock and other body parts. His mouth, in particular, is really quite enthusiastic.

** DAY 4 **

Brienne changes the cross of her legs for the fourth time since she sat down at her desk half an hour ago.

Just like the first three times, it doesn’t help at all.

She’s just not going to cross her legs. Crossing them is making it worse.

It’s not that the insides of her thighs are _too_ irritated from last night’s activities. It’s probably more accurate to say that they’ve developed a better memory than usual. A _much improved_ memory. As it turns out, a specific type of friction—bristle on soft skin—can be an especially effective mnemonic device.

Speaking of the cause of all that friction, her phone has just buzzed with a text from Jaime.

**No surprise meetings today, **it reads, **but so much work to do 😩 I’ll have to head to the barber during lunch. **(Right, he mentioned wanting his ‘beard’ groomed by a professional, even though it’s still _barely_ a beard.) **Ok if I don’t eat with you?**

**Of course, **she texts back.** Want me to get you something?**

**I’ll be fine**, he says.

**Ok. Don’t skip lunch, **she remembers to add. **See you after work.**

**❤️👌🏼 I’ll ask about the beard burn 🔥🔥🔥**

Oh gods.** Don’t you fucking dare.**

**Why not???**

**Because I’m not there to restrict the flow of information from *your* mouth. **She really doesn’t trust him to be delicate about it, and the thought of what Jaime might possibly tell his barber makes her shudder.

**I thought you’d trust my mouth by now 👅🍯**

**🤦🏼‍♀️ I hate you so much. Also, why 🍯?**

**“She kicked and wailed, the maid so fair, but he licked the honey from her hair.”**

**🤢🤮**, she sends back. Why is she with a man who justifies his inappropriate emoji usage with the lyrics of traditional folk songs? Is the beard really enough of an incentive?

(_Yes. Yes it is._)

**You’re no fun 🐻**

**Sorry you’re stuck with me then. **Okay, that sounds a tad harsh. She ends the message with:** 😘**

**Yeah,** Jaime says.** It’s really such a shame that I love you 😘**

**It honestly is, **she smiles as she types.** Anyway, the beard burn isn’t even that bad.**

**You had to put on more makeup than usual this morning.**

**You realise my “usual” doesn’t set a very high bar. **All she did was put on some concealer. If the redness doesn’t clear up, Brienne is sure Margaery—_not_ Jaime’s barber—will be able to offer sound advice. That does mean, however, that she’ll have to sit through Marg beseeching her for ‘details’ as payment for that advice, despite Brienne’s persistent refusal to provide those ‘details’.

**Still, **Jaime responds, **I’m liking the beard so far. I don’t want it to bother you.**

Hmm. _Bother_ is not the word she would choose to describe the beard’s effects on her. _Bother_ is what she’s found she’s willing to endure for the sake of that beard’s continued existence. **Can’t you just ask your barber how to moisturise (?) your beard, **she suggests,** or whatever? I have no clue how facial grooming works.**

**Fine. **Then another bubble pops up. **Maybe I should ask your dad for advice?**

Brienne has to read the message five times before she manages to reply. **????????? What ?????????**

**Your dad has a beard. It looks soft ☁️**

It _is_ soft, but— **Please don’t contact my dad about how to make beards soft. **She doesn’t want him jumping to any conclusions about—

**Oh calm down. It’s not like I’ll have to explain *why*.**

She sends back a 🤢 for the second time in this conversation. Or rather, a string of 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢.

**Brienne, I hate to break it to you, but I really think he knows we **(Brienne cringes) **fuck. **

As if this isn’t bad enough of a message on its own, Jaime also sends:

**👉🏻👌🏻👉🏻👌🏻👉🏻👌🏻**

and **👅👅👅👅👅👅**

and also **🍆🍯🍆🍯🍆🍯**

**I’M BREAKING UP WITH YOU**, her thumbs smash into her phone.

**Will you ask your dad about beard upkeep before you do that? A farewell gift to me 😘**

**FINE. **And, just to be clear: **I’m not actually breaking up with you.**

**I know ❤️**

** DAY 5 **

A chair rolls over to Brienne’s cubicle the second she’s back from lunch with Jaime. “Seven hells, Brienne,” Margaery whispers. “Seven. Hells.”

“I know,” Brienne sighs. What else could this be about? Marg didn’t see Jaime yesterday, which means she hadn’t seen Jaime since Friday. So much has changed since _Friday_. Whatever his barber did yesterday—

“I think I almost passed out when I saw him in the cafeteria. How can you _stand_ it?”

“I _can’t_.” It’s the first time Brienne has said it out loud. “It’s a _struggle_.”

Marg just pats her on the shoulder sympathetically. “I’d like to say I pity you, Brienne, but I’m too overwhelmed with envy.”

** DAY 8 **

Jaime likes watching Brienne sleep. She’s calm when she sleeps. Her brain stops working so hard about—about everything.

Jaime likes watching Brienne wake. She’s peaceful when she wakes; smiles when she blinks her eyes open and sees him beside her. Her brain will start whirring soon after, but for those precious few moments—

Except the first thing out of Brienne’s mouth when she wakes this Saturday morning is a loud, frustrated groan.

“Good morning to you too,” Jaime huffs.

Brienne squeezes her eyes firmly shut again. “Ugh. I can’t look at you anymore.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It’s too much, Jaime. The—” one hand feels for his forearms— “and the—” she runs that hand up his torso— “and now _this_?”

She’s currently sticking her palm directly in his face.

Jaime shrinks away from her hand so he can, well, breathe. “You mean the beard?” he laughs as he swats her hand away. He brings his index fingers and thumbs to the corners of her eyes and tries to force them open, to no avail. “This isn’t at all what I hoped to achieve. What’s the point of looking this good if you’re not going to appreciate it?”

Brienne cracks open one eye. “Oh gods.” Then she closes it again. “Shave it off.”

“_What?_”

“You can’t look this good. It’s not fair.”

“I’m _not_ shaving it. Thirty-four years on this earth and I finally get to have one,” Jaime grumbles. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“_You’re_ being ridiculous.” Her eyes are _still_ closed. “This beard is ridiculous.”

“It _isn’t_. I look _good_.” There’s no shame in saying so, in Jaime’s not-so-humble opinion. “You should be burning with desire for me.”

She covers her face with both hands, but not before he catches her reddening cheeks. He thinks back on the past week and—

“_Oh_. That’s why you’ve been—”

Brienne mumbles something into her palms.

“What?” Jaime asks.

She parts her hands to reveal only her lips, leaving her fingers covering her eyes. “I said, _took you long enough to notice._”

“You could have just told me that it was making you _horny_.”

Brienne sticks out her tongue in disgust. “Absolutely _not_. And I’m telling you now to _shave that thing off_ so I won’t have to deal with all this—all this—”

“Horniness?”

“_Stop saying that_.”

“It’s accurate.”

“I hate it.”

“You really shouldn’t deny your sexuality. It’s not healthy.”

“You can take my sexuality and—and—shove it up your ass!”

She’s so flustered that Jaime can barely keep himself together. “Hmm,” he says, swallowing a laugh. “That’s something I’m not opposed to trying—”

“_Jaime_!”

“Alright, relax. We can table that for later,” he teases, expecting her to violently object, but he gets… _nothing_. Instead, Brienne just bites her lip.

_Interesting._ Something to bring up another time, perhaps.

“Well, the beard isn’t going anywhere. You’re just going to have to get used to it,” Jaime says, steering the conversation away from a topic he’s very sure Brienne isn’t ready for. He kisses her on the lips through the triangle-shaped gap between her palms, and just when she seems to sink into it—her fingers still insistently covering her eyes—he breaks the kiss and rubs his chin against hers. She yelps in surprise, loosening her hands, and Jaime takes the chance to tug her wrists towards him. “_Look at me_, Brienne.” He puts her hands squarely on his face, caressing his cheeks with them. “_Touch the beard_.”

She doesn’t close her eyes this time; in fact, she looks as if she’s on the verge of bursting into giggles. “This is so creepy, Jaime.”

“Creepy?” He guides her hands into massaging his jaw. “Or _arousing_?”

“We don’t have time for this,” she reminds him, though he notices she’s not trying very hard to escape from whatever _this_ is. “We have to get ready. More viewings today, remember?”

“So it _is_ arousing.”

“Not really, no.”

“Liar.”

“And how exactly do you plan on ascertaining that?”

“You really have to ask?” He’d reach under the covers now if he wasn’t so thoroughly enjoying the sensation of his-fingers-on-her-fingers-in-his-scruff.

“If that’s your only method, you’re going to be disappointed.”

Jaime pouts. “A terrible blow.”

“I only _just_ woke up.”

“So did I.” He shifts closer to her to prove his point.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Morning wood doesn’t count.”

“It counts. I dreamed of you.”

“And how exactly am _I_ supposed to ascertain _that_?”

“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Jaime removes his hands from hers, and is pleased to find that Brienne’s fingers continue to stroke his beard, even without his encouragement. He moves his hands down to her waistband now, and looks at her expectantly.

She peers over his shoulder, presumably at the clock on his bedside table. “Fine. Make it quick.”

_This woman will drive me insane._ “You’re really killing the mood here.”

“Depends on your perspective,” she shrugs. “Maybe it’s a challenge.”

“Okay then. Time me.”

Brienne laughs out loud at first, but stops when Jaime reaches over for her phone. “You’re serious?”

“I’m serious.” He offers her phone to her. “Time me.”

She takes her phone, almost warily, and pulls up the timer. “Your orgasm or mine?”

“Both.”

“Starting now?”

Jaime pauses to consider the conditions of the challenge. “Depends on how you want yours.”

Brienne just glows red again.

“You don’t even have to ask,” he sighs with a pretend weariness, but grins at her just before he dips beneath the covers. On a hunch, he hooks his arms beneath her thighs, so that he can bring her thighs closer together—on either side of his face—rather than pushing them apart. If she was worried about beard burn, he’s sure she would have stopped him by now. But she doesn’t seem to mind.

She _really_ doesn’t seem to mind.

“Time?” he calls out, as soon as she peaks. That certainly _felt_ like it didn’t take as much time as it usually does.

Brienne—still trying to catch her breath—lifts her phone to her face. “Oh fuck. I forgot to press start.”

Jaime tosses the covers off his back. “Are you _kidding_ me? That was some of my best work!”

“You can go again?” she suggests, hopefully.

“What happened to ‘make it quick’?”

“Oh.” Her face falls. “Right.”

“Anyway, it isn’t fair to start timing me when you’re already one orgasm in.”

It’s Brienne’s turn to pout now.

“Don’t be selfish,” Jaime says, sliding himself upwards, removing his sleep pants and briefs as he settles beside her—hells, he’s been wearing them all this time, though he slept shirtless, and Brienne is still wearing her t-shirt too. He opens the drawer of his bedside table to grab a condom. “Do I get to pick how I want mine now?”

“Don’t tell me.” Before he knows it, she’s straddled him—oh, he’ll never tire of her doing _that_, especially as she gets more and more confident each time—then she plucks the wrapper from his fingers.

“You know me best,” he replies, placing his hands on her thighs and beaming up at her.

She tosses her phone onto his bare belly and tears open the wrapper. “Logically, if we time this—” she puts the condom over the head of his cock— “wouldn’t it be _my_ achievement in making you come—” she rolls it down— “rather than your achievement in coming?”

_Her achievement in _torturing_ me with all this talk, more like._ Jaime pushes her phone off his belly, then sits straight up and pulls her into him. _Fuck the timer_, he might say, if he wasn’t already too busy kissing Brienne, and trying to get his cock in her, and _honestly_, they have more than enough time to get ready—they can share the bathroom—so if he wants to take his time with Brienne he will, and if he wants to grow a beard he will, and if he decides to shave he will do that too, because _he_ wants to, not anybody else, not his father, not his sister. For any other man it might seem like a simple decision, but Jaime felt the weight of it the moment Brienne told him to _shave it off_—not because of how much it upset him, but because of how much it _didn’t_. It’s strange. If those exact words had spilled from other lips, they would have felt so different. But from Brienne’s, he felt like—he felt like he could still say ‘no’, even if she did mean it as something other than _it makes you look so much more than you already are to me; you overwhelm me_ (the feeling is mutual)_, and I would much rather be able to function when I’m around you._

_Yes, Jaime, _he hears her, _right there_—and he will realise later that the possibility of saying ‘no’ is something quite new, and quite—quite—quite _wonderful_. He doesn’t mean the other kind of saying ‘no’, the one that’s swiftly followed by having to bear the consequences of that answer, to endure or weather or say ‘fuck’ to those consequences. He’s more than familiar with that. Rather, it’s saying ‘no’ to a person that gives him room to do so, as much as there is room for ‘yes’, _yes, yes_, said shyly, or begrudgingly, or vehemently, or with as much desire as Brienne is panting softly into his ear now. She gives him a chance, always, to say ‘no’—a chance, and a choice—though she feels to him like no choice at all. _We don’t get to choose who we love_, he’d tried to tell her just over two months ago, though he’d stumbled over the last word back then. But there are always choices to be made in the process of that love, even the little ones, even choices about how to share a bathroom or whether to grow a beard. And that room to say ‘no’—to choose, and not feel guilty, or angry, or resigned about it after—it makes every ‘yes’ so, so, so much sweeter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Brienne gets eaten out twice in this chapter but it’s my story and I’m gonna do what I want. Also she’s a damn mess and she deserves some relief. I think Jaime’s beard is growing at a humanly possible speed based on what I’ve been told, but it might be on the quick side, though it still isn’t fully grown by the end of this chapter. I actually had some big things I had to cut plot-wise, so that might mean the next chapter of this will come pretty soon. Maybe.
> 
> Thanks to my beta [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde), and [kirazi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirazi) for suggesting the oh-so-crucial link between the honeypot emoji and The Bear and the Maiden Fair! It made that whole text exchange, honestly.
> 
> I’m on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


	17. A woman and a man put down roots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! I’ve had various ideas for how to continue this fic over the past four months (oops), and now that I’m done with [The Assignment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711024), and not really in the mood to write [After an Almost](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662541), you get a brand new chapter of this. 
> 
> I start this off with a description of Jaime and Brienne’s new apartment, which was partly inspired by a penthouse in a since-demolished building in Singapore called Pearl Bank Apartments. I [made a post on Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/post/618540041216622592/from-pearl-bank-apartments-to-tiong-bahru-with) that has links to photos, floor plans, interviews, and other historical information. You don’t have to look at these links – I’ve been told that the visual references might make you even more confused – but I just wanted to link to them here in case you’re curious, and want some images in your head before reading!

They do, eventually, find the perfect apartment.

Or rather, they find an apartment that they could _make_ perfect.

It’s a penthouse in an older high-rise apartment building, a horseshoe-shaped structure constructed out of concrete rather than the glass and steel of more modern buildings. It’s one of the few buildings in the city that could truly be called an architectural icon, and Brienne remembers reading once that its open cylindrical form—a work of genius to some residents of the city, an eyesore to others—was inspired in part by the single drum tower of Storm’s End. When their agent confirms this, Jaime nudges Brienne and reminds her that the castle was where they’d gone on their first date, which means she has to remind _him_ that it _would_ have been their first date—rather than their _minus-fourth_ date—if he’d actually asked her out _properly_ instead of whatever the hell he did.

Anyway. The building had been the tallest residential building in the city when it was first completed four decades ago, and while its height has since been eclipsed, they’re still thirty-seven storeys up, in a penthouse with obscene amounts of natural light and panoramic views of the Stormlands. Panoramic views of the _sea_. Gods. She thinks she might be able to see _Tarth_, even from this far inland.

The interiors, however, are hardly in the best condition. The apartment had been subdivided so many times at various points in its history that they wouldn’t have been able to tell what was part of the original design if their agent hadn’t been there to describe it to them. And whatever that _is _left in the apartment of its original fittings is not so much _vintage_ as it is _dated_, in a way that falls substantially short of charming. In its current state, it’s a penthouse only in its loosest definition—being located on the highest floor of the building—and possesses little of the luxury that the word ‘penthouse’ would otherwise imply.

Strangely, though, Brienne thinks of this as a point in its favour. She doesn’t much like luxury, and even if she did, she wouldn’t much like someone else dictating what luxury should look like in a space that she’d hope to consider her home. And the apartment’s less-than-luxurious condition is probably why it’s being listed at a much lower price than one might expect for a penthouse in such an architecturally significant building.

But it’s _big_. She hadn’t wanted _big_. It’s a split-level design built around a central staircase, with rooms that extend out in alternating directions across five staggered floors. _Five floors._ Fine, so not all the rooms are huge, and the way it’s designed it’s really more like three levels stacked on one side of the staircase and two levels stacked on the other. On paper, it’s actually less than three times the square footage of Jaime’s service apartment.

_Less than three times the—_she had just said that in her mind in the tone of, _oh, it really isn’t _that_ big_. Who has she turned into? Five months ago, she was in Jaime’s apartment for the first time, thinking it was far too big for just one person. Now she’s standing in _this_ apartment, a penthouse unit that is _more than twice _the size of Jaime’s current penthouse, trying to _rationalise_ it for two-person occupancy. Brienne asks their agent if there are smaller apartments available in this building—ignoring Jaime’s smirk that says, _ha, you’re interested enough in _this_ place to ask _that_ question_—and is told that there are, but they’re all located on much lower floors with inferior views. Oh, and those smaller apartments are being listed at equal or even higher price points because they’re in much better condition than this one.

“You like it, don’t you,” Jaime says, when they’re out on the roof deck (gods, this place has a _roof deck_), looking towards that smudge in the sea that she thinks must be Tarth.

“It’s a mess,” she replies. “We’d have to gut the place.”

“But you’re _interested_ in gutting the place. Plus that means we get to make it as cosy as we like. _With_ sea views.”

“It’s too much space, Jaime. It’s _five floors_. Why do we need five floors?”

“Technically, yes, but the way it’s laid out it’s really it’s more like two and a half floors, isn’t it? And the rooms aren’t even that big.”

“A couple of them are. And it’s _so many rooms_.”

“Master bedroom. Living room. Kitchen. Dining area. Study. Gym. Guest bedroom for your dad or my brother. That’s already most of the apartment.”

“We’re on a roof deck, Jaime. Do we really need a roof deck?”

“You could have Margaery and Renly and Loras over on this roof deck. And are we really talking about _needs_ over _wants _at this point?”

She heaves a sigh, then mumbles, “Fine.”

Jaime grins. “Fine? It’s decided then?”

“It’s _decided_ that this is our strongest contender so far. We’d definitely have to get a designer in, and who knows how much renovations are going to cost. Or how long they’re going to _take._”

“We talked about this. You could move in with me once your lease is up.” Jaime wraps an arm around her waist. “It’s a mess, and it’s big, but I like it. I like that we get to make it our own.”

“Do you really like it? Or do you like it only because you think _I_ like it?”

“I like it. I’d consider it even if you weren’t in my life. But you are, and you like it, so it makes me like it _more_.” He rests his chin on her shoulder. “Does that make you feel any better?”

It does, a little, though she finds herself coming up with a hundred different rationalisations—it’s firmly within Jaime’s budget; it might be bigger than she’d wanted, but it’s still smaller than her family home back on Tarth; it’s somewhere she could see herself living in the long term even though she’d never thought she’d have the means to live somewhere like _this_ in the long term; and then there’s the _light_, and the _sea_—before she finally tells Jaime to put in an offer.

“It’s happening,” he says, when he gets off the phone with their agent, and then he smiles, and kisses her, and for that brief moment she forgets all her worries and concerns and that little voice in her brain that is saying, _what the fuck am I doing letting my astronomically rich partner buy us a penthouse with five floors when we’re less than six months into our relationship, what the fuck_.

_It’s happening_, she thinks instead. _The rest of our lives._

It doesn’t feel scary at all.

And then, it’s _really _happening, hells, they’re meeting designers and contractors and electricians and plumbers who are telling them that with all the work the place needs it could take anywhere from three to six months_ minimum_ to get the place remotely livable, and her lease is up in a _month_ so she’s moving a quarter of her things into Jaime’s apartment and the other three quarters into storage. At night when she collapses into bed she only dreams of living in the penthouse as it looks now, which is _bad_, even though Jaime is telling her that all they really have to do is throw money at the problem and get the place all stripped bare and painted white so that the interior designer can come in and work their magic. But this just makes her more annoyed, because she doesn’t want to throw Jaime’s money at the place in a way that might make it feel less like _theirs_, because why not live in his already-designed service apartment forever then? Of course, it takes more than a few conversations for Jaime to understand this concept, and then there’s more meetings with the designer, and then they’re looking at furniture and lighting and appliances and artwork and plants and it’s so much happening all at once that going into the office actually feels like a _break_.

Brienne is taking this break—she’s working on a spreadsheet, and spreadsheets are _sensible_ and _knowable_ and _therapeutic_—when her phone buzzes with a text from Jaime. She expects it to be yet another link to a couch or lamp or rug that he likes, which seems typical of all their text exchanges lately, but instead it just says:

**Peck just forwarded me this email. **

followed by a screenshot.

_Dear Mr Lannister,_

(it reads; Peck screens the emails sent to Jaime’s public email address.)

_This is Ellaria Sand; you might remember me from the Lannister Corp Annual Gala last year, which I attended with my partner Oberyn Martell. I am writing today as the features editor of WQ, Westeros’s premier monthly magazine for men._

(Something about the phrase ‘premier monthly magazine for men’ makes Brienne want to roll her eyes, so she does.)

_While the publication focuses primarily on fashion and lifestyle, we also pride ourselves on our in-depth interviews with the world’s most interesting men._

(So that’s where this is going. She doubts Jaime would be quite so interesting to a fashion magazine if he didn’t look like… Well. Like _that_.)

_Men like you. _

(Oh gods.)

_I would be beyond ecstatic if we could arrange an interview and photoshoot with you for an upcoming issue, your schedule permitting. While our office is based in King’s Landing, we understand you are now based in the Stormlands, and are more than happy to travel to you._

The email continues with more pleasantries, and concludes with Ellaria Sand’s personal (a word she specifically underlined) contact details.

**Men like you, huh? **Brienne types, once she’s done reading.

**There are no men like me, **he replies. **Only me. 💁🏼♂️**

Seven hells. **Spare me 🤦🏼♀️**

**Never.**

**So, are you going to say yes?**

**I don’t know. Usually things like this have to go through our PR department, but I suspect my father has instructed them to fend off any attempt to spotlight my defection from KL.**

**I take it this Ellaria Sand doesn’t mind offending your father.**

**Are you kidding? She and Oberyn Martell are**

And the message ends there. **Are?** Brienne prompts.

**Um. It’s a lot more than I can describe over text. Essentially, I think she would *relish* offending my father.**

**That sounds dangerous.**

**Probably.**

**You’re considering it, aren’t you?**

**Maybe.**

**Have you ever considered, *maybe*, that you should just *tell* your father that you want to stay?**

**Won’t work.**

**And this will?**

**No, but this way I might be able to control the narrative. Maybe spin it as a good move for the company, make it difficult for my father to drag me back.**

**How so?**

It takes a few minutes for Jaime to reply, enough time for Brienne to briefly turn her attention back to her spreadsheet, until she receives:

**I decided to move because I believe that it’s healthy for the upper management of the corporation to diversify beyond the family, to create space for fresh voices and fresh perspectives? And that every branch of Lannister Corp is important, even the smaller offices, and if the plan is for me to move up in the company, I should gain experience in local/regional dynamics, rather than simply continental/international? And perhaps there’s a certain myopia in assuming that the company’s power should be centralised in King’s Landing? Or I could say that I was sent here because Lannister Corp sees the potential for growth, not just in the Stormlands, but in terms of strengthening inter-region cooperation.**

Then he simply sends: **Just spitballing. Most of this probably isn’t appropriate for WQ.**

**You call *that* spitballing? **Brienne replies. She’s still in the process of digesting his earlier message.

**You have to admit that could work.**

**It’s an interesting strategy**, she concedes, and of course it is, it’s Jaime and he’s _brilliant_, and for a second she thinks that, the toxicity of his family aside, it would be a shame if he doesn’t take over the company. He always tells her that Tyrion has a better head for these things—and maybe his brother does, for the aspects of the business that Jaime detests—but perhaps, if push comes to shove, Jaime could do some real good being in charge of a company like Lannister Corp.

**Told you there are no men like me 💁🏼♂️**

And then he sends a message like _that_.** I’m going back to my spreadsheet**, she texts back, and drops her phone in her desk drawer.

A week later, over dinner, Jaime tells her that he spoke to Ellaria Sand on the phone late that afternoon. “She was pitching ideas to me for the photoshoot.”

“You get a say?” she manages to ask, though she’s trying desperately not to think about everything Jaime had told her last week about Ellaria Sand and Oberyn Martell.

Jaime shrugs. “She really wants this interview. Wants to make sure I’m happy, I guess.”

“What ideas did she have?”

“She said she wants to _displace me from the corporate environment_. But she isn’t too familiar with the Stormlands, so she was asking _me_ if _I_ had any suggestions for the location.”

And then he pauses. And bites his lip. He hardly ever bites his lip.

“What did you do,” Brienne asks flatly.

“I… _may_ have mentioned Tarth.”

“Oh.” _What’s wrong with that?_ “That _would_ be nice.”

“Yeah. It just sort of… came out. I was thinking we could go together the weekend of the photoshoot. Since you haven’t gone back in a while.”

“Sure.” It’s true—with the move, and the renovations, she hasn’t visited her father since… well, since she brought Jaime to meet him. But there’s still something _nervous_ about Jaime, and she can’t figure out why.

“I thought maybe I should have asked you first,” he says.

She frowns. “Why? I’m _from_ Tarth. I don’t _own_ Tarth.”

“I mean. If you’re going to be around. And they’re going to ask about why I moved.”

Oh. _Shit._ Somehow it’s only just dawned on her that this interview won’t just be about _Jaime_, and Brienne doesn’t quite know how to deal with this realisation. She can’t even _overthink_ this realisation, because she doesn’t know what to expect at all. What happens when a person is mentioned in the interview of another, more high-profile person? Jaime is recognisable, yes, but he isn’t really that much of a celebrity, either. It’s not like they’ve ever had to fend off paparazzi or anything like that.

She must have been silent for a while, because now Jaime’s cutting in with, “You know what, I’ll call her and take it back.”

“It’s not—” It’s not that she’s _opposed_ to being discussed, necessarily. It’s just unfamiliar territory to her. “Is Ellaria doing the interview herself?” she asks.

“No. She says she’s sending someone called…” Jaime picks up his phone and scrolls through it. “Sansa Stark?”

The name sounds vaguely— “Oh! _That_ Sansa Stark? I didn’t know she wrote for WQ.”

“You know her?”

“I’ve read some of her articles before. She’s really good. Funny, but sensitive.”

“That’s good.” He puts his fork in his mouth for a few seconds, pondering, then sets it on his plate. “I could still keep you out of it. If you want.”

Brienne doesn’t know what she wants. She doesn’t want to force Jaime to keep her a secret any longer, not after those first two months, but— “I genuinely have no idea what to expect, Jaime.”

He nods. “How about this—we read some old WQ interviews tonight. And those articles by Sansa Stark that you mentioned. It might give us a better idea.”

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s do that.”

* * *

**Taming the Lion of Lannister**

_Jaime Lannister of Lannister Corp on Life and Love in the Stormlands_

By Sansa Stark  
Photography by Theon Greyjoy

Once upon a time—that’s how all fairy tales begin, isn’t it?—there was a castle called Storm’s End.

Well, there _is_ a castle. It’s just that no one lives there anymore. They wouldn’t, because even if it was in livable condition, no one could possibly enjoy living in a castle visited by tens of thousands of tourists every year. If you refer to yourself as a resident of Storm’s End today, it would mean that you live in the mid-sized city surrounding the castle called Storm’s End. This mid-sized city contains a mid-sized business district, which, like many other business districts across Westeros, contains the offices of one company you might just have heard of—Lannister Corp.

Lannister Corp is the most powerful corporation in Westeros, but you didn’t need me to tell you that. It is owned by one Tywin Lannister, but you didn’t need me to tell you that either. You also probably don’t need me to tell you that Tywin Lannister has three children: daughter Cersei (now Cersei Targaryen—yes, _that_ Targaryen), her twin brother Jaime, and their younger brother Tyrion. And maybe you might have even heard that Jaime Lannister—often called the ‘Lion of Lannister’—upped and left the company’s King’s Landing headquarters months ago. Despite being the presumed heir to his father’s corporate empire, he’s here, living in the city surrounding the castle called Storm’s End, heading the relatively unimportant Stormlands regional branch of Lannister Corp.

The only thing on my mind when I arrived here for this interview was—_why?_

I should clarify. By _here_, I don’t just mean the Stormlands, and I don’t just mean Storm’s End. I mean, specifically, the relatively untouched island of Tarth, one ferry ride away from the mainland. Known as the Sapphire Isle—referring to the colour of its waters, which, I can attest, are indeed very blue—Tarth is one of those infuriatingly beautiful places with green meadows and rolling hills and crystalline lakes and secret waterfalls (waterfalls!) and just enough ruins scattered about to remind you that it has History. There’s something… _romantic_ about it, is what I’m saying. It’s a setting fit for a fairy tale.

(A reminder: this is still a fairy tale.)

When I was first given this assignment, I looked at the name—Jaime Lannister—and made certain assumptions about where this interview would take place (an office). Where the photoshoot would take place (also an office). What Jaime Lannister would be wearing during said photoshoot (suits, suits, well-tailored suits, the kinds of well-tailored suits that well-heeled men wear to—you guessed it—the office). Those are reasonable assumptions to make about an interview with the heir to Lannister Corp, right?

Instead, I’m on Tarth. A location that was suggested by Jaime Lannister himself, though he hadn’t travelled with us on the ferry to Tarth this sunny morning. We’d been informed that he would meet us on the island itself, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d already bought himself a vacation home here, or even a _weekend_ home, which seems like something a Lannister might do. (The truth, I would find out later, is far more interesting.)

The pier isn’t particularly crowded, but it still takes me some time to spot him, because the Jaime Lannister I am looking for doesn’t match the Jaime Lannister I eventually found. In the process of my research for this interview, I had encountered almost every single picture that has ever been published of the man, and I would estimate that about ninety percent of those pictures involved a well-tailored suit. So, subconsciously, I am looking out for a man in a well-tailored suit. Today, Jaime Lannister is _not_ wearing a well-tailored suit. He is in blue shorts, and brown loafers, and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and I find myself struck by the sudden realisation that to put Jaime Lannister in an outfit that doesn’t show off his forearms—even a well-tailored suit—should be considered some kind of crime against humanity.

I lock eyes with our stylist. I can tell she is thinking the same. I can tell that she wants to rip up all the suits she brought with us for a photoshoot on the Sapphire Isle.

It feels trite to say that Jaime Lannister could be a model, but Jaime Lannister _could be a model_. He’s tall, _so tall_, and chiselled—from the tips of his ears down to his exposed ankles—and to use the word ‘blonde’ would be scientifically accurate, but aesthetically insufficient. He’s _golden_. He _shines_. It’s _ridiculous_.

Also, since he’s moved to the Stormlands, Jaime Lannister has grown a beard. Now, I may be writing this article for a fashion magazine, but WQ is a Very Reputable Publication and I’d like to think we have Depth, so I would prefer not to dwell too much on Jaime Lannister’s appearance. In any case, nothing I write will ever be able to describe that appearance better than the accompanying photo spread, in which I expect he will look nothing less than devastatingly handsome. (Edit: I just saw the final spread. Good gods.) However, I would like to point you back to my aforementioned encounters with pretty much every single picture ever published of Jaime Lannister, and consider it my expert opinion when I say this: growing a beard might be the best decision Jaime Lannister has ever made with regard to his appearance. And that is all I shall say on the matter.

Anyway, despite the lack of a well-tailored suit and the addition of a well-trimmed beard, I locate Jaime Lannister on the pier. And despite being confronted with his tall chiselled shininess, I manage to make all the requisite introductions (though, come to think of it, I might have said my name was Shansa). I address him as Mr Lannister throughout all of it, just in case that’s something Lannister men expect to be called, until he finally says, “Call me Jaime, please,” with what I can only describe as a warm smile mixed with a faint grimace. “Let’s reserve ‘Mr Lannister’ for my father.”

For a brief moment, I am transported to my therapist’s office, except I’m in their chair and Jaime is in mine. _Does ‘Mr Lannister’ bother you because it reminds you of your father?_ I want to ask, just based on that faint grimace. I don’t pry, though—not yet, at least. The plan, our photographer tells us, is to head towards the ruins of Evenfall Hall. (Yes, more castles! Don’t forget, this is a fairy tale!) Jaime smiles again upon hearing this, and I can see that there’s a tenderness to it, though I will only find out the reason for that tenderness later. Our group splits—the crew in one car, and Jaime driving me in the other—and I suppose there is no time like the present for the interview to begin.

I have to be honest. I kind of expected Jaime to be a lot more abrasive than he turns out to be. Back in King’s Landing, he—like most other members of his immediate family—has a reputation for, well, _arrogance_ is probably the furthest I can go in print without fear of being sued or something. Yet, even though I had never met Jaime Lannister before today, I still get the odd feeling that this man in the driver’s seat, this man who asked me to call him Jaime, is a very different man from the one I would have met if this interview had happened a year ago.

Well, I say _interview_, but this is starting to feel more like a private tour of the island. Jaime is coming across like somewhat of a Tarth enthusiast (this term will only become more relevant as this story progresses, trust me), although I notice that he’s careful to alternate between random trivia about the island, and a sort of layperson’s guide to Lannister-Corp-in-the-Stormlands.

“Are you thinking of expanding the company to this island?” I ask, even though I have no clue how that might work.

“No,” he tells me. “There are some places Lannister Corp shouldn’t touch.”

“A man of honour,” I quip. I also instantly regret directing such a flippant remark at my interview subject.

To my relief, Jaime only chuckles. “I sound like one, don’t I? My brother told me once that the Stormlands is rubbing off on me.”

“Are Stormlanders known to be honorable?” I hadn’t heard that one before.

Jaime’s eyes are on the road, but I can see a twinkle in them. “Some of them are.”

I am getting very curious about Jaime Lannister’s tender smiles and eye twinkles and Tarth enthusiasm, and how all this might relate to his extended stay in the Stormlands. By the time we arrive at the ruins of Evenfall Hall, I feel like I’ve built up enough of a rapport with Jaime to ask The Question. “So,” I say, trying to be very casual about it, “why did you decide to move to the Stormlands in the first place?”

“They needed someone to fill the position,” he answers, matter-of-factly. “I volunteered.”

“It must be so different working here,” I reply. “Have you found it challenging?”

He looks at me, square in the eye, and I start to worry that I’m about to get a detailed account of some unpleasant Lannister family drama that I, Shansa—I mean, _Sansa_ Stark, would have no choice but to put into my article about someone who has thus far seemed like a perfectly pleasant man. Instead, he says, cryptically, “I just felt like I wanted a change, you know? King’s Landing is… complicated.”

There’s something in how he says that word—_complicated_—that tells me he doesn’t want to elaborate on it at this point in our acquaintance. So I say, “You like it here more than the capital, then?” while nodding in a manner that I hope is sympathetic.

He smiles that tender smile again. “It was… an adjustment, but I discovered its charms eventually. So I feel good about my decision. I think it was the right one.”

It wasn't until a while later that I realised we had started talking about Brienne Tarth long before we started talking about Brienne Tarth.

One could use the words ‘tall’ and ‘blonde’ to describe Brienne Tarth, but Brienne Tarth doesn’t look anything like the other tall blonde women with whom Jaime Lannister has been seen out in public. For one thing, she’s tall_er_ and blond_er_ than all of them. When I first spot her walking towards us, I find myself wondering if she is some apparition of a warrior, a knight that fell on the battlefield back in the days when Tarth used to have Evenstars—who are, as it turns out, Brienne’s ancestors—and who now haunts the grounds of Evenfall Hall. Except this warrior is wearing not armour, but a simple blue cotton dress. She is not wielding a sword, only raising a hand to wave at us from afar. I didn’t think we were expecting anyone else, so I look around to see if anyone recognises her, and then my eyes fall on Jaime.

I think about that look on Jaime’s face many times in the weeks following the photoshoot. Because it’s not just that Brienne Tarth doesn’t look like those other women. It’s that Jaime Lannister has never looked at those other women the way he’s looked at Brienne Tarth.

Remember that tender smile? That tender smile that Jaime smiled when we told him we would be shooting at Evenfall Hall, once the seat of House Tarth, of which Brienne Tarth is a descendant? Remember how he had a twinkle in his eye when he mentioned that there are honorable people in the Stormlands? Remember how he seemed like a Tarth enthusiast?

Remember how I said this was a fairy tale?

Jaime’s just about to duck behind some ruins to change into his first outfit—ah, the glamour of the on-location shoot!—when Brienne catches up to us. He introduces her as his partner, and she will explain to me later that she works for Lannister Corp too, and that she was spending the earlier part of the morning with her father, who still lives on the island. (There probably isn’t a Lannister vacation home on the island, I surmise. As I said, the truth is far more interesting.)

“Wanna help me change?” is the first thing that Jaime says to her, wiggling his eyebrows, and if I’d thought on the drive over here that Jaime was a different man from the one I might have met a year ago, then this Jaime—playful; teasing; just inappropriate enough that if I hadn’t known that Brienne was his partner, I would worry that she might punch him—is even _more_ different.

“Absolutely not. Not when you say _help_ like _that_,” she snaps, though she’s blushing. Gods, _I’m_ blushing.

“Your loss,” he tells her.

She rolls her eyes and mutters, “Gross.”

“Only with you,” Jaime replies, and kisses her on the cheek before sauntering off.

I realise, now, that I had no idea what I signed up for when I accepted this assignment from my editor. I don’t think _my editor_ had any idea what she had signed me up for.

“I’m sorry he’s such an ass,” Brienne tells me, in the most loving way one could imagine a person saying that sentence.

“Don’t apologise for me, Bridget!” Jaime calls out from a distance away.

“Bridget?” I ask, confused. I was sure I had heard him introduce her as Brienne.

“Long story. It’s Brienne. I’m a fan, by the way.”

I swear, I’m not just including that out of narcissism. I’m including it because by the end of the day that I spent with Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth, I wanted to tell her that I was a fan of hers too. Because that long story, it turns out, is that the first time Brienne Tarth spoke with Jaime Lannister, she actually _did_ punch him. He had insulted her, and thought her name was Bridget while insulting her, and she had _punched_ him.

For the record, it was _Jaime_ who told me this story, the details of which I was instructed to withhold besides that whole punching part, though I can assure you that it is more meet-cute than red flag. And Brienne wants me to qualify that they were both drunk and she really shouldn’t have punched him at all (cue a brief tiff about whether or not Jaime deserved it—Jaime asserts that what he said was cruel—that, despite the subject matter, manages to be the sweetest bickering I’ve ever witnessed in my life). But suffice it to say that they sorted things out, and a few weeks later he was asking her to take him sightseeing (a move that Jaime insists was strategic, and that Brienne insists was just downright confusing, and now _this_ is the sweetest bickering I’ve ever witnessed in my life). And then they went to Storm’s End. The castle.

Fairy tales, it turns out, begin with ‘once upon a time’, and castles, and a woman punching a man in the face.

Reader, I wish I had popcorn. Just now, I’d asked Jaime why he’d moved to the Stormlands in the first place, and it is hitting me that the real question should have been why he _stayed_. But I don’t need to ask. I can see the answer on the fringes of this photoshoot, in Jaime’s earnest mischievousness, Brienne’s genuine exasperation, and the sheer affection that underpins it all. It is just so incessantly _charming_. Sure, there’s probably something incredibly weird about observing a couple interact in the most mundane ways for an extended period of time, but damn it, I’d like twenty seasons of the Jaime and Brienne reality television show, please. (No, they will not accept any offers. I actually asked.)

Oh, and I say I wish I had popcorn, but in truth I was done one better—_ice cold beer_. Supplied by Brienne’s father, no less, who turns up with an ice box midway through the photoshoot. Brienne is very embarrassed—_I took the car exactly because I knew he would do something like this_, she says, though he’d gotten around that by getting a lift from a friend—but we are all immensely appreciative. “Did you know she punched him the first time they talked?” her father asks me, as we all stand there with our beers, watching Jaime posing suavely for the camera. Brienne groans, but I laugh and confirm that I am very aware of the details, and her father clinks his bottle with mine.

That evening, Jaime and Brienne and I head to a restaurant by the pier, so we can have one last conversation before I hop on the last ferry back to the mainland. By this time, the question on my mind isn’t “Why did you decide to _move_ to Stormlands?” or “Why did you decide to _stay_ in the Stormlands?” but rather, “How _long_ are you planning on staying?” As long as he’s able, Jaime says—he’s just bought an apartment for them back on the mainland, actually, and they’re in the midst of renovating. “And what will this mean for your future with Lannister Corp?” I probe.

“I can’t say. Things can change so quickly in this life.” He casts a glance at Brienne, who smiles at him, and gods, Brienne must be around my age, but I have this inexplicable urge to adopt them as my parents (I’m sorry Mum and Dad).

I ask if this means he won’t be taking over the company. But Jaime doesn’t give me a straight answer. “I’m still young, relatively speaking. If I’ll be taking over, it won’t be within the next five or ten or possibly even fifteen years at the very least. And there are other members of my family, like my brother, who are more than capable of assuming that role.”

“And you’ll really stay here in the Stormlands until then?”

“There’s still work to be done here, or we wouldn’t even have any offices, would we?”

“But no expansion into Tarth,” I joke, thinking of our conversation in the car this morning.

He takes a sip of his beer. “Not for the company, no,” and he meets Brienne’s eyes again.

Here in this restaurant after a long day, Jaime Lannister is still as tall, and chiselled, and shiny as he was this morning. He’s as playful and exasperating as he was this afternoon. But now, with his partner by his side, on this infuriatingly beautiful island a ferry ride away from Storm’s End, he also strikes me as someone _content._ Someone _happy_.

So I say it. I say to Jaime: “You must be happy here.”

“I really am,” he agrees. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”

He tells me this with a sort of disbelieving laugh. It’s as if he, Jaime Lannister, with all his wealth and his beauty and his talent, had never expected happiness to be possible. This might seem incongruent on the surface, but I find it endearing, somehow. This is a fairy tale, remember? There should be a happily ever after. 🅦

* * *

“Are. You. Insane.”

That’s the first thing Jaime hears Tyrion say when he answers his brother’s phone call one Thursday morning. It gives him an odd sense of dissonance, because he doesn’t really _feel_ insane. He’s in the middle of a very peaceful breakfast with Brienne in their currently very empty, but otherwise perfectly functional penthouse.

“Hello to you too, brother,” Jaime replies, sandwiching his phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can continue eating his cereal. “That’s what people usually say when they answer the phone.”

“I can’t believe you managed to keep this interview under wraps for—how long has it been since you actually did it?”

_Shit._ The new issue of WQ is out today. “Three months? I think?” he replies, while miming the opening of a magazine at a clueless Brienne.

“Three _months_? We’ve spoken multiple times in those three months! You told me about your new apartment but you didn’t tell me about _this_?”

“The apartment seemed more important—”

“Lannisters buy properties all the time. What we _don’t_ do all the time is _give out interviews without informing Lannister Corp PR._”

_Tyrion is mad_, he whispers to Brienne, who nods as she spoons her own cereal into her mouth.

“I heard that. And I’m not mad, I’m just—seven hells. I don’t know what I am. What I _do_ know is that you recommended me for the top job, and while I appreciate the gesture, Father is going to _explode_. Fuck, _Cersei_ is going to explode when she finds out she was only mentioned _once_ in the entire article, and only as daughter of Tywin and wife of Rhaegar.”

Jaime takes the phone from between his ear and shoulder. “Yeah… Sorry you have to deal with that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about what _I_ have to deal with. I can’t believe you thought it was a good idea to introduce your girlfriend—”

“Partner.”

“_Partner_ to the world like _this_.”

“We thought Sansa Stark wrote some very nice things about her.” Ellaria Sand—well aware that she was going behind Tywin Lannister’s back to publish this interview—had sent the final draft to Jaime a few weeks back for his approval.

At this point, Brienne’s phone rings too. _Marg_, she mouths when she looks down at her phone, and makes a face before she answers. _WHAT THE FUCK BRIENNE_, Jaime can hear Margaery scream, as Brienne holds the phone away from her ear. _WHAT THE FUCK. YOU’RE IN WQ._

“I’m not really _in_ it, technically,” she says, as she excuses herself from the table and heads for the living room. Technically, though, she kind of _is_. They’d included a shot of Jaime holding Brienne’s hand, and while the rest of her isn’t in the photo, he’s also smiling like a fool at the rest of her that isn’t in the photo.

“Jaime, are you still there?” Tyrion says.

“Sorry. I’m here. Anyway. Whatever Father thinks, this puts us in quite a good light, don’t you think?”

“That’s all well and good, _if_ Father cared what anyone else besides our shareholders thought of us. You know what he always says—”

“A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep,” the brothers chorus.

Jaime sighs. “Well, it’s out there. And I’ve been in the Stormlands for… just over a year? Besides sending you, he really hasn’t done anything else particularly drastic.”

“Yes, but I think he’s under the impression that it’s something you just need to get out of your system. Now you’ve gone and _publicly _implied that you intend to stay in the Stormlands forever. With Brienne. You’ve poked the fucking lion now.”

He _has_ poked the lion—he knows he has—except, over the next four days, Jaime doesn’t hear anything from his father. He doesn’t even receive a single condescending email. Tyrion texted Jaime a painful breakdown of Cersei’s tirade at a family dinner on Saturday, a dinner their father had presided over, so Tywin Lannister is definitely aware of it. He just doesn’t communicate any acknowledgement whatsoever.

In the meantime, the photos do cause something of a mild stir on the internet (_don’t let it get to your head_, Brienne warns him, after she’s narrated some particularly enthusiastic comments on WQ’s social media), and the profile itself spawns a number of useless articles regarding Jaime Lannister’s not-so-new, not-so-mysterious partner (articles which both of them wisely refuse to read, though Marg sends Brienne screenshots of the more positive parts). But Jaime really isn’t famous _in that way_, even if he does have the looks for it (okay, so he let it get to his head a _tiny_ bit). People will get bored soon, and move on to the next one.

Then, on Monday, about half an hour after they’ve arrived in the office, he gets the following text from Brienne:

**Shit. Marg says your father’s here.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know I don’t usually do cliffhangers with this fic, but I couldn’t resist. I also genuinely have no clue yet how I’m planning to continue this story, but obviously it won’t go badly for JB, because that isn’t what you signed up for.
> 
> Sansa’s article on Jaime was inspired by Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s legendary [GQ interview with Tom Hiddleston](https://www.gq.com/story/tom-hiddleston-cover-profile) from 2016, which is worth a read even if you are ambivalent towards Tom Hiddleston. The style of this interview inspired Sansa’s voice, but I’m also thinking of her as a Jia-Tolentino-meets-Jane-Austen type, who writes in a way that’s witty, observational, but with a sense of romance. Hopefully that came across!
> 
> Final random thought: I always feel kinda weird that I write Jaime as a very Coherent and Proper texter? I know that’s not really the fanon norm, but trying to write him any other way seems odd to me for some reason. Sorry if that feels OOC to you!
> 
> Thanks as always to [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde) and [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat)! And I’m on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


	18. A man faces his father with a woman

There are only a handful of Lannisters that Jaime can think of who genuinely enjoy each other’s company. There are certainly only a handful whose company _he_ genuinely enjoys: Tyrion, of course, and his Aunt Genna, and Uncle Kevan when he isn't being so tiresomely loyal to the company. He might even include Cersei, on the occasions when he can still glimpse the girl she had been. Yet, for some godsforsaken reason, Lannisters interact with each other with far higher frequency than the general lack of affection should dictate. Perhaps it’s a natural result of most of the family being employed by the same corporation. But there really isn’t an excuse for the plethora of uncomfortable and unnecessarily elaborate gatherings that each member of the family takes turns to organise, in a tiring display of one-upmanship that everyone is expected to tolerate. And that isn’t even counting the weekly dinners hosted by his father. Only the gods know why Tywin Lannister bothers. The dinners can’t possibly serve the function of any kind of family bonding, unless family bonding can occur in a shroud of silence and—if Cersei happens to be in the mood—spite.

So it’s been a great relief to Jaime that the only relation he’s met in the past year is his brother, bar a couple of distant cousins with whom he’s had to meet for business purposes.

It’s also a great shock to have to come face to face with his father again after all this time.

With _three minutes’ notice_.

Via a text from Brienne. 

Who’d heard it from Margaery.

Why the _fuck_ didn’t Tyrion warn him this was going to happen?

(_I _did _warn you, brother_, Tyrion will tell him later. _I called you last week, as soon as that damn interview came out. You should have known Father was going to make a move at some point._)

Jaime makes it to the lifts just in time to check his reflection in the metal doors—and steel himself for some snide remark on his beard, which he’s maintained for more than half a year already—before they slide open to reveal his father, dressed in a sharp suit and crimson tie as always. Tywin Lannister doesn’t seem to have changed at all since Jaime last saw him, but he is, surprisingly, alone. Jaime isn’t sure what to make of this—his father is usually flanked by one assistant, if not an entire entourage, at least when he’s on Lannister Corp business.

Which must mean this isn’t Lannister Corp business.

Tywin Lannister is treating this as a family matter, and Jaime thinks that might be _worse_.

“Father,” Jaime greets him, as steadily as he can. “You should have informed me you were coming. I would have—”

“Your office,” his father commands, and flicks a cold glance towards Jaime’s jaw. It lasts only a second, but it feels just as cutting as any snide remark Tywin Lannister could have delivered. Jaime suppresses a sigh, gives his father a short nod, and turns to head towards his office. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Brienne lingering some distance down the hallway leading to her cubicle, hugging the file she always uses when she’s only pretending to look busy. _Later_, he desperately tries to communicate with his eyes, and she backs away.

She doesn’t back away soon enough.

“The girlfriend, I presume,” his father comments, without missing a step. Without even looking at Brienne at all.

“Partner,” Jaime corrects, though he knows it’s a futile effort. Something tells him his father will continue to refer to Brienne as his _girlfriend_ for the foreseeable future, with the exact amount of condescension that will make her sound like nothing more than a passing fancy.

As far as Jaime is aware, his father has never set foot in these offices before, preferring to delegate that duty to other members of the family. Still, the Lannister Corp employees who find themselves in Tywin Lannister’s path this morning recognise him easily. They pause and shuffle towards the walls to let him and Jaime pass—Jaime thinks some of them even _bow_—even though the hallways are more than wide enough to accommodate them all. Brienne had once made fun of Jaime for speculating that he has an aura. In the case of his father, it’s less of an aura and more of an _elemental force_—and Jaime doesn’t think Brienne would laugh if he ever mentioned that observation to her.

When they arrive at Jaime’s office, Peck is already holding the door open for them. This isn’t something Jaime expects in the least—Peck is his assistant, not his servant—but there’s value in any little gesture that will show Tywin Lannister that his son commands respect, and Jaime gives Peck a tight smile of gratitude. “I’ve cleared your schedule for the morning, ser,” Peck announces—infusing _ser_ with more deference than usual —but before Jaime can acknowledge this, Tywin Lannister cuts in with:

“There’s no need. I don’t foresee this taking up too much of my time.”

_My time_, his father had said. Not _his_. Not Jaime’s.

Once Peck takes his leave, Jaime stands by and observes Tywin Lannister cast his eye about the room. Though Tywin’s expression doesn’t change, Jaime can imagine the depth of his father’s disdain. This office is perfectly serviceable, and has its small luxuries, but it isn’t half as sleek or spacious or imposing as Jaime’s office back in King’s Landing. When Jaime had first come to the Stormlands, he’d surveyed this room with a judgemental gaze of his own. Now that he thinks of it as _his_, he feels compelled to defend it from any criticism. That criticism doesn’t come, however; his father makes no comment out loud. Instead, as soon as this inspection is complete, Tywin Lannister walks round the desk, and takes his place in Jaime’s own chair, rather than in either of the two seats across from it. The message is clear: _everything that belongs to you, belongs to me by extension._ Jaime feels a panic rise within him at the thought that his father might find some way to repossess his apartment with Brienne, just as they’re making that apartment into a home.

_Fuck._ Speaking of Brienne, he has a framed picture of them sitting on his desk, and Tywin Lannister is currently looking down his nose—literally, and figuratively—at that very picture now. If Jaime had had more than that three minutes’ notice, he’d have thrown it in his drawer before running off to receive his father. He isn’t ashamed of the photograph, of course, but Tywin Lannister is less of a let-me-print-out-a-cute-picture-from-my-phone-and-put-it-in-a-quaint-photo-frame-that-I-will-place-on-my-desk-so-I-can-look-at-it-all-the-time kind of person, and more of a I-will-commission-the-best-portrait-painter-in-the-city-to-depict-all-the-members-of-my-family-with-very-serious-expressions-in-a-gigantic-oil-painting-that-will-serve-as-a-potent-reminder-of-the-Lannister-legacy kind of person. And Jaime doesn’t want to give his father yet another opportunity to pass judgement on his life choices.

Again, though, Tywin Lannister stays silent, just as he’d stayed silent on Jaime’s beard, and office. “How long has it been, Jaime?” he begins, not bothering to wait for Jaime to sit down himself. “Since you’ve taken up this position?”

“About a year, Father,” Jaime replies, still standing.

“More than that, as I recall. And how long were you supposed to be here for?”

“… Three months.”

Tywin leans forward to place his elbows on Jaime’s desk, and interlaces his fingers. “Have you had your fun, then?”

“My… fun?” Jaime says, his jaw tightening. 

“I left you to your own devices, because I assumed you would come to your senses eventually. But it seems you’re under the false impression that you’ll be allowed to stay here indefinitely.”

“Father—”

“While that isn’t ideal,” Tywin continues, without so much as a pause, “false impressions—they can be _rectified_. That interview, on the other hand. Tell me, Jaime—what exactly did you think was going to happen? That I’d be convinced by some dribble about fairy tales and love stories?”

“I didn’t do that interview for your sake,” Jaime snaps, though he knows that on some level he _did_. He’d wanted to force his father’s hand, get public opinion on his side, _something_ that would keep him out of King’s Landing.

“Perhaps. But my expectations for you have not changed. Interview or not.”

Jaime’s hand clenches into a fist at his side. “Tyrion is the better choice to lead the company, and you know it.”

“Yes, you made that opinion very clear to a _fashion magazine._ But that is all it shall be. Your opinion.” Tywin leans back in his—in _Jaime’s_ chair, and aligns his arms with the armrests. “I will give you three months to find your successor, but you will return to King’s Landing as soon as you’ve completed the handover.”

Jaime takes a deep breath and says: “No.”

“No?” Tywin repeats, fixing him with a hard stare.

“I want to stay. I’ve—I’m doing _well_ here.”

“I’m sure your experiences here have been valuable, in their own way. And in three months, you can apply what you’ve learned back at head office.”

“I don’t just mean—” Jaime starts, then sputters, then sighs. It’s useless. How will he explain to his father that it’s the things apart from Lannister Corp that make him so much happier here—that it’s those things that matter _more_? Unbidden, Jaime’s eyes gravitate towards that photo frame on his desk, though he can’t see the picture itself. His father’s eyes follow that movement, and settle on the photograph once again. Then, Tywin spins his chair away from the desk, towards the window behind it.

“Bring her if you must,” he says.

“I’m sorry?”

“She isn’t chained to the Stormlands, is she? If you’re so enamoured with her, bring her to King’s Landing. I’m sure we can find a position for her there.”

“This is her _home_.” _And mine too_, Jaime thinks, but doesn’t say_._ “Her father lives on Tarth, and—”

“And your family lives, primarily, in King’s Landing. Your family’s business is run primarily from King’s Landing.”

“We are not your pawns to—”

Just then, Jaime is interrupted by a knock on the glass behind him, and he turns to see Brienne waiting at the door, and Peck standing sheepishly behind her. 

_What the hell are you doing?_ he attempts to say, knitting his brow.

_Let me in_, she seems to reply, tilting her head towards Tywin.

Jaime turns his head back to see that his father has swivelled the chair towards the desk, and is currently frowning at the woman who’s dared to interrupt this meeting. To Jaime’s surprise, his father doesn’t send her away, or ignore her. Rather, he lifts a hand, and motions for her to come in. But Brienne doesn’t enter immediately. She looks to Jaime for permission instead—Jaime who is still standing because his father has taken his own chair in his own office—so he nods, and she opens the door.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” she says, as she steps inside. There’s a tinge of nervousness in her voice, but some confidence, too. “I just wanted to introduce myself, Mr Lannister.” She strides up to Jaime’s desk, and extends her hand towards his father. “I’m Brienne Tarth. Jaime’s partner.”

Tywin stares at her hand for a long moment before taking it, and gives it a single firm shake. “You’re the one that’s been keeping my son here?” he asks, releasing her hand.

“I can’t claim to have that power over Jaime, ser. He knows his own mind.”

“Hmm,” Tywin says, disbelievingly. “In any case, I have informed him that he is expected back in King’s Landing in three months. I have, _graciously_, extended that invitation to you as well.”

Brienne meets Jaime’s eyes for a second, then looks back to Tywin. “Thank you, we appreciate the offer. But we’ll have to discuss the matter privately before we decide if we will move.”

“_If_?” Tywin narrows his eyes. “You might have a choice, Miss Tarth, but Jaime does not.”

“Still,” Brienne replies firmly. “We’ll discuss it.”

Tywin stands from Jaime’s chair at that, and straightens out his suit. “Very well. I have made my expectations clear. I will see Jaime in the capital in three months. With or without you.”

Just as Tywin walks by her, Brienne asks: “Are you leaving already, ser?”

He pauses, and turns to look at her. “Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering if you might like to join us for dinner.”

“What?” exclaims Jaime—the only word that’s left his lips since she walked into the office—and looks wildly between Brienne and his father.

Tywin simply regards Brienne, betraying no emotion on his face. Despite, or because of, a lifetime of weekly family dinners hosted by his father, Jaime finds himself praying that Tywin will decline. When Jaime woke up this morning, he didn’t think he’d be starting the day with his father, let alone ending the day with it. _He’ll say no_, Jaime assures himself. What are the chances that his father will be staying in the city tonight, anyway? Tywin Lannister is the type of man who commutes via private jet to give his son a lecture, and is probably planning to be back in King’s Landing by lunchtime.

Except Tywin Lannister doesn’t say no. He says: 

“Fine. Have Jaime send my assistant the details.”

Then, he walks out the door, without waiting for any reply.

Leaving Jaime and Brienne standing there in his wake.

“Jaime?” Brienne asks, turning to face him.

“Yes?” Jaime answers, still slightly stunned.

“Did I just… invite your father to dinner?”

He nods slowly. “You did.”

“And did he just… agree?”

“He did,” Jaime nods again.

“Oh.” Her jaw hangs open. “Oh _fuck_.”

His eyes widen. “What do you mean, _oh fuck_? That wasn’t your plan?!”

“I didn’t _have_ a plan,” Brienne frets, pacing across the room. “I just wanted to—I don’t know, _intervene_.”

“Well, you _definitely_ achieved that.”

“Oh gods.” She puts her hands to her forehead. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like—some kind of out-of-body experience.”

“I’m not sure what came over you either. I feel very confused. And more than a little turned on.”

“_Jaime_,” Brienne scolds, her cheeks colouring.

“It’s true.” He walks up to her, and wraps his arms around her waist. “You’re my knight in shining armour. Barging into my office to defend me from my evil father—”

“Whom I just invited to dinner.”

“Yes, and he’s going to eat both of us _for_ dinner, just so you know.”

“Oh _fuck_,” she repeats, then tears herself from his arms. “Okay. Strategy. We need a strategy.”

“Alright.” Jaime claps his hands together. “What exactly are we hoping to achieve with this dinner?”

“I’m guessing there’s no point in trying to impress your father.”

“I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve witnessed my father being impressed,” he replies, “so I’m going to go with ‘no’. Besides, my father doesn’t have an issue with _you_. He just has an issue with _us_ staying _here_.”

“Maybe we need a—a counter-proposal. What about all that stuff we discussed before we decided on the interview? Hold on, let me—” Brienne pulls out her phone, types, scrolls. “Found it! _Healthy for upper management to diversify beyond the family… gain experience in local/regional dynamics… potential for growth in the Stormlands…_ Will any of this work?”

Jaime vaguely remembers what he’d told her a few months ago, but frankly, that was all just rhetoric. It might be good enough for investors and clients, but his father will see through it all. They’ll need to do more than just… reframe the situation. A concrete plan—some initiative to run from the Stormlands—

“Hey,” he says, walking over to his desk to reclaim his chair. “You know what you’ve always said—about wanting the company to be more socially conscious?”

“Yeah?”

Jaime pulls up a blank document on his computer, and starts typing. “Corporate social responsibility. The company has done sponsorships and donations on an ad hoc basis before, but my father has never greenlit an actual department.”

Brienne sits herself in one of the chairs facing Jaime. “You want to start a proper CSR programme?”

“Yeah. We can do a test run in the Stormlands, then expand it nationwide in the long run. Every branch of Lannister Corp should have some form of CSR department eventually.”

“Why _don’t _we have CSR departments?”

“My father has always resisted it,” Jaime admits. “I don’t think he sees much of a point in such a structured approach, as opposed to… plastering our name on some new wing of a museum or the odd stadium. But maybe if we pitch it just right—”

“Hey—remember that conference you dragged me to a couple of months ago?” Brienne cuts in, and yes, he’d begged her to come with him because he thought he was going to be bored out of his mind. “There was that panel on CSR, and one of the panelists talked about—”

“About how sustainability initiatives could improve efficiency?” Jaime finishes for her.

She nods. “And how investors these days are becoming more interested in environmental and ethical issues. So if your father can be convinced that it’s a good business decision—”

“Right, we still have to link it back to that. We can ask him to give me—a year? At least? To develop and implement a few proposals. It’ll buy us some time.”

“We should leverage on the positive press from the interview,” Brienne suggests, tipping forward in anticipation, “with you as the face of this new era of Lannister Corp. As long as we get your father on board, we should announce it before he has a chance to change his mind.”

“Good call.” Jaime flashes her a grin. “Looks like I’m rubbing off on you in more ways than one.”

She groans. “A: Don’t take credit for my idea. B: Ew.”

“A: I’m simply pointing out that it has a certain… Lannister flavour. B: That wasn’t your reaction—”

“—this morning, yes, I know,” she continues, blushing again. “How many times will you make variations on that joke before you get tired of it?”

“As many times as it takes for you to stop blushing at variations on that joke. So, never.”

Brienne plasters her palms to her cheeks to shield her blush. “Anyway. Back to A. I don’t know what the Lannister flavour _is_,” she insists. “I’ve only ever met one of you. Well, and Tyrion via video calls. And now your father—and you’re all very different.”

“Fine. I accept your excellent strategy that’s one hundred percent Brienne Tarth.”

“Thank you.” She puts her hands back in her lap. “Now—what the hell are we going to do for food? All the best restaurants are closed on Mondays, even if we _could_ get a reservation on such short notice.”

Jaime resists the urge to say _you should have thought of that before you invited my father to dinner in some fit of insanity_, and then a thought comes to his mind—a terrifying thought—and he holds up his hands and says: “Hear me out.”

Brienne stares at him. “You want to invite him over, don’t you.”

“Look—it’s our comfort zone. Not his.”

“We’re mediocre cooks at _best_.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re not aiming to impress him, remember? We’re just trying to… level the playing field.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Brienne grabs a pen from his pen holder, just to tap it nervously on his desk. “Gods, I’d feel better if we had more time to get everything ready.”

“Well,” Jaime says, dragging out the syllable, “I have a couple of meetings I can’t miss this afternoon. But if your schedule is clear, I _could_ give you the afternoon off.” 

She stops tapping. “Jaime—”

“Perks of dating the boss,” he shrugs.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to play that card.”

“I think my father descending upon us counts as extenuating circumstances.”

“Fine,” she huffs, “but I’m working from home.” Then, she slots the pen back in the pen holder, and reaches across the desk for Jaime’s hand. “Hey. Sorry I sprang this on you.”

“It’s okay,” Jaime sighs, interlacing his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this mess. Let’s hope my father is at least _open_ to the CSR idea.”

“If he isn’t…” She exhales. “Then we go to King’s Landing in three months.”

It isn’t what he’d imagined for them at all. He’d just bought a home for them here, damn it—and he doesn’t want to give that up, even if they have to move to the capital. Perhaps they can make time to return to the Stormlands most weekends, but it’ll be trying all the same. Not to mention all the bullshit they’ll have to weather with his family.

“It won’t be easy,” he tells her, “you know that, right?”

She gives him a half-smile. “Perks of dating the boss?”

He smiles back. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be easier with Brienne alongside him.

Once Brienne heads back to her desk, Jaime sends off an email to his father’s assistant with their address and a note to be there at seven thirty. He receives a reply that says _Mr Lannister would prefer to meet at seven_, so it’s just as well that Brienne will be back home earlier than usual. At lunch, they head out to pick up groceries—Jaime will make seafood pasta when he’s back from work, Brienne will cook her dad’s roast beef with vegetables for a second course, and they swing by their favourite bakery to get some dessert too—before Jaime drops her off at home so she can make sure everything is in order. In between his meetings, he tries his best to come up with a solid enough proposal to present to his father at dinner; just past five thirty, he arrives back home to start on the pasta; at six forty-five, Brienne is already changed into her blue dress and setting the table, while Jaime runs into their bedroom to get a fresh shirt; at six fifty-seven, the intercom rings.

Almost exactly at seven, Tywin Lannister is at their door.

When they welcome him inside, Tywin casts his eye about their apartment, in much the same way he’d done in Jaime’s office this morning. Jaime knows that the contemporary design isn’t to Tywin’s taste at all, besides the fact that they only have the bare minimum amount of furniture, but he lets himself think that his father looks slightly less disdainful than before.

“You bought this apartment?” Tywin asks.

“And refurbished it,” Jaime answers. “It wasn’t in the best state originally. We’re still waiting on a few pieces of furniture, and—”

“You were intent on staying.”

Jaime swallows a sigh. They’re diving right back into it, then. “Like I said this morning, I’m doing well here. It’s…” He pauses to consider his phrasing, and settles on: “There’s a lot about this life that suits me.”

Unexpectedly, Tywin doesn’t give him a scornful reply—or any reply at all. Could it be possible that his father is only _just_ realising that this isn’t some kind of… rebellious phase? After all, Jaime had decided to stay in the Stormlands on impulse at first, and he’d never actually spoken to his father very much after that. 

Maybe inviting Tywin Lannister to their home might be beneficial in more ways than they’d imagined.

After a brief tour of the apartment, they have Tywin sit at the head of the dinner table, with Jaime and Brienne’s places on either side of him. While Jaime prepares three small portions of pasta—a simple enough dish with shrimp and mussels, tossed in a white wine sauce—Brienne opens a bottle of Arbor gold to go with it. She pours two glasses of wine for Jaime and Tywin, but only a cup of water for herself. Before Jaime can ask her why she’s skipping the wine, though, Tywin gestures to the pasta, and to the roast sitting on the counter, and says to Brienne: “You made all this?”

“I did the roast,” Brienne answers levelly. “My father’s recipe. Jaime cooked the pasta.”

Tywin’s head tilts towards Jaime. “I didn’t know my son could cook.”

“I manage,” Jaime says, just as he sets down the third plate. “And having someone else to cook for is good motivation.”

“We weren’t sure if this would be too much,” Brienne adds. “We bought a chocolate tart for dessert too. But Jaime tells me your family dinners are usually at least three courses.”

“Yes,” Tywin acknowledges. “A tradition for which Jaime hasn’t been present for quite a while.”

Jaime shares a look with Brienne as he takes his seat, but refrains from letting slip some abrasive response. They want Tywin on their side tonight, and they’ll grin and bear all of it if they have to. So that comment is left unacknowledged, and with everyone settled, they tuck into their dinner. It’s the best they could have done on short notice, but Jaime still braces himself for any negative remarks from his father. Thankfully, Tywin simply chews, swallows, sips—all in silence. Jaime supposes that’s one battle won, if his father doesn’t have anything bad to say about the pasta. Or bad enough to say out loud, at least.

Tywin’s silence doesn’t last past the first course. Once they move on to the roast, he begins to pose question after question to Brienne—about her father, and Tarth, and her experience working at Lannister Corp. It’s much like Selwyn’s interrogation of Jaime a few months ago, and more tense with so much at stake, but Brienne manages to hold her own. Jaime gives her space to answer his father’s questions, sipping his Dornish red in the meantime (Brienne had refused the red wine too, but he supposes she just wants to have her wits about her). He reminds himself that Tywin doesn’t seem to have any objection to Brienne—he’d offered to transfer her to the office in King’s Landing after all—and she has no skeletons in her closet, or none that would offend his father anyway. In any case, Jaime has no doubt that his father will have his people conduct a background check on her before long, if he hasn’t already done so.

(He’s probably already done so. Jaime wouldn’t expect any less from his father.)

Finally, they progress to dessert. Their meal has gone smoothly thus far—or as smoothly as can be expected with Tywin Lannister in attendance—so Jaime decides there’s no better time to present the proposal.

“Father,” Jaime says, while Brienne slices the chocolate tart.

“Yes, Jaime.”

“I’ve been thinking lately about properly introducing CSR. A structured, company-wide programme, not just the one-off donations that we’ve done in the past.”

Tywin takes the final sip of his Dornish red. “Those were incredibly large one-off donations.”

“Yes, but—I think it’s time for the next step. Not just in terms of philanthropy, but to critically examine our existing business practices. Investors these days are becoming more socially conscious, and so are the businesses we work with. Lannister Corp should be a leader in this field, not—”

“You’re about to suggest that you run a pilot in the Stormlands.”

Tywin says that right as Brienne is placing a slice of tart before him, and she almost drops his plate.

“Well, you’ve had your reservations in the past,” Jaime quickly continues, Brienne giving him an apologetic look as she takes her seat. “We thought starting things off in the Stormlands, and expanding from here, would allow us to iron out any potential issues.”

“We?” Tywin echoes, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Jaime clears his throat. “I’ve discussed some of these ideas with Brienne. She’s a strong believer in—”

“Miss Tarth is—twenty-six, you said?”

“Yes, ser,” she answers.

“Hmm,” Tywin grunts, in a way that implies that while he might not object to her being Jaime’s _girlfriend_, he wouldn’t trust her with anything beyond that.

“There’s a lot more we can do as a company in terms of sustainability,” Jaime pushes on, “and I’d like to personally head this initiative to explore—”

“You don’t need to be in the Stormlands to do that,” Tywin cuts him off again. “If you’re so sure that this is what the company needs, then run it from King’s Landing.”

“As I said—”

“Give me one good reason why you should base this initiative in the Stormlands. Besides the fact that you have your girlfriend here, and this apartment.”

Ten different arguments come to Jaime’s mind, and each feels weaker than the last. He can predict the holes his father will tear in each one, and wishes Tyrion were here to back him up. No—he wishes he could use this speechlessness to justify why he shouldn’t be next in line to run Lannister Corp. But his father will only survey him with his critical gaze, and tell him he will simply have to be better. To carry on the family legacy.

Then, before Jaime can devise an answer for his father, Brienne opens her mouth and says:

“What if I’m pregnant?”

He can’t have heard that right. 

Did Brienne just say she might be—

Tywin is turning his head to Brienne now, and he actually looks _intrigued_. Before this can go any further, Jaime holds up his finger to his father and, as calmly as he can, tells him: “Father, will you excuse us for just one second? We didn’t… expect to reveal this information this evening.”

He hopes to all seven hells that his father bought that—honestly, he’s surprised at _himself_ for having the presence of mind to even respond so steadily—because he has no fucking clue what Brienne is talking about, and why he had to hear it at dinner with his _father_. She’s on birth control! They still use condoms on top of that! But maybe—there might have been a couple of nights—

“What is going _on_?” he demands, in a whisper, when he’s dragged both of them into the bathroom and locked them in. “You’re _pregnant_?!”

“I panicked!” Brienne whispers back. “He wanted a reason, and you were blanking, and—”

She _really_ needs to stop doing that in the presence of his father. “So you _lied_?!”

“Well—” she bites her lip— “I _might_ be a week late—”

“What?!” _Oh hells. Is this why— _“Fuck. _That’s_ why you weren’t drinking tonight?”

“I don’t know for sure,” she admits, wringing her hands. “I bought a test, but it’s been sitting in my drawer for three days—”

“Alright,” Jaime says, resting his hands on the counter. “Okay. Let’s just—let’s deal with my father first, and then we can talk about this after he leaves.”

“What should we say?”

He sighs. “The truth. That we’re not sure.”

“If I’m—really pregnant. Will it mean… is it more likely that he’ll want us to move? That is, if we decide to keep the baby—”

He meets her eyes. “You _don’t_ want to keep it?”

“No!” she exclaims, then claps her hands over her mouth. “I mean,” she drops her voice back down to a whisper, “we’ve only ever discussed having kids _hypothetically_, and we didn’t think it would happen so soon. I just didn’t want to assume—”

“I’m not trying to pressure you—”

“I didn’t want you to think we had to—”

“It’s your body—”

“I never thought I’d be having kids at this age—”

“We’ve barely been together ten months—”

“Yes, and things aren’t stable with your family—”

“I don’t know how we’d childproof this apartment—”

Three sharp knocks at the door.

They open it to see Tywin standing right outside.

“I have a flight to catch,” he says.

“Um—we haven’t confirmed the pregnancy,” Jaime blurts out. It’s ridiculous—they’re having this conversation with the two of them still standing in the bathroom.

“Send me your CSR proposal this week,” Tywin replies, coolly. “If it’s sound, I’ll give you six months to execute it here, after which we’ll review plans for expansion. I think you’ll find that quite generous, given the circumstances.”

“Yes,” is all Jaime can say. In truth, he’d expected his father to put up more of a fight, so it _is_ generous, even if it’s six months less than he’d wanted. He’d never even gotten around to mentioning his timeline, though.

“And I’ll await your updates on—” Tywin’s eyes dart towards Brienne— “on the other matter. There will be further discussions to be had, if there is to be a child.”

Brienne nods. “Hope you—enjoyed dinner,” she stammers, and Tywin nods back. He doesn’t go so far as _saying_ that he did enjoy the meal, but he does thank them as they show him to the door.

So—they have six months.

But Brienne might also be—

“I’ll start cleaning up,” Jaime offers. “If you want to—the test—”

“Okay,” she croaks.

“Unless you need company?”

She shakes her head, and walks off towards their bedroom.

Jaime busies himself with loading the dishwasher—he’s so nervous that it’s a miracle that he doesn’t drop a plate in the process—and packs the leftovers too, all while imagining every possible way they could probably make use of the rest of the roast beef, if only to stop himself from imagining every possible way that their lives could turn out if Brienne actually _is_ pregnant. He puts the containers in the fridge, closes the door and—

_yelps. _

That’s the only word to describe the sound he just made.

“Seven hells, Brienne! How long have you been standing there?”

She ignores his question. “It’s negative.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Yup.”

“Alright.”

“So…”

“That’s it then.”

“I suppose. I guess I should still see a doctor to be sure.”

Jaime nods. “How do you feel?” he asks, finally.

“Honestly?” Brienne looks at the ground. “I thought I’d feel more… relieved.”

“You’re _not_ relieved?”

“I _am_. I just… thought I’d be _more_ relieved than I am.”

“Oh.”

“How about you?” she asks.

He lets himself feel, _really_ feel, for the first time since Brienne had brought it up at dinner. “I can’t say I’m _not_ relieved. But maybe—a tiny bit disappointed too.”

She gives him a tiny smile. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“Not that I think we should start—”

“No. Of course not. Things with your father are still—”

“Yeah.” He holds his hand out to her, and she takes it. “We have six months, at least. More, if we play our cards right.”

Brienne swings their hands between them for a few seconds, then stops. “Jaime—maybe we _should _go to King’s Landing.”

“What?” _After all they’d just—_

“Not _move_ there, just—to visit. To meet your family.”

Something stretches taut in Jaime’s chest. “Brienne—”

“I know. But I need to have _some _idea of what we’re dealing with, that isn’t just based on… whatever you tell me. And we can’t hide here forever.” She tightens his grip on his hand. “Especially if—if we _do_ decide to have kids at some point.”

“Kids?” he allows himself to smirk. “Plural?”

“Kid, open parenthesis, ‘s’, close parenthesis,” she clarifies, rolling her eyes.

He reaches for her other hand. “Do you think… it’s something you’ll want in the next five years?”

“Why five?”

“I’ll be forty in five years,” he says. “Would be nice to be a father before then.”

They’d spoken about the possibility of having kids, yes, but in a largely amorphous way. He’d never told her about this ‘deadline’ of his.

“That’s fair,” she replies. “You know… I never really thought much about being a mother.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. For a lot of reasons.” She doesn’t expand on these reasons, though he’s sure they’ll come up at some other time. Instead, she looks to the side and mumbles, “I can see it with you, though.”

“… In the next five years?”

She nods, and Jaime leans in to plant a kiss on her cheek—pink from her confession. “Good to know. But I’m happy to table that discussion for now. And… discussions about—certain events that might come along with having kids. Before… or after… or whenever.”

He’s being deliberately circuitous—though he’s not quite sure why, since there isn’t any question that they see a future with each other—but she seems to have caught his meaning, because her cheeks have turned from pink to red now. “Yeah,” she says, still looking to the side. “Whenever.”

“What a day,” he declares loudly, steering them away from that topic. They’ve had enough potentially life-changing conversations for the week, and it’s only _Monday_. “Oh—I don’t think my father touched his share of the chocolate tart.” He tilts his head towards the tart where it’s sitting on the counter, its circle complete again with the three slices that Brienne had cut just now. “Thought you might still want to have some.”

Brienne squeezes her eyes shut. “Is it bad that I want to take the whole tart to the living room and pig out on it while watching some trashy TV show?”

That sounds like a perfectly sound plan. “It _is_ a good tart,” he assures her, “and we _did_ have a long day.”

“We also had pasta, _and_ roast beef for dinner.”

“Those weren’t exactly huge portions. Anyway, dessert goes in a separate stomach,” Jaime shrugs, releasing her hands to go in search of two forks.

“Is that so?” she laughs, picking the tart up from the counter. “And where is this separate stomach located?”

“You have to believe in it enough for it to exist. Like dragons.”

“What? Are you sure that’s how dragons work?” Brienne wrinkles her nose. “I feel like you might be confusing them with something else.” 

“Yes, I’m sure,” he replies, sagely, as they walk towards the living room. “Both Tyrion and I subscribe to this theory. Or we did when we were growing up, anyway.”

“Hmm. I think we might need to run through a few things before we raise a child together. Just to make sure we’re on the same page about dragons and desserts.”

Jaime smiles. _Raising a child together_. He rather likes the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure why, but I’ve never felt so uncomfortable about posting a chapter, at least for this fic. Maybe there’s just so much Tywin in this one, or a lot more ‘plot’ than I’m used to (not my strong suit – I’m better off writing entire chapters about beards), but I did need to move the story along. I know it’s more tense than all my other chapters, but I do hope you found enough sweet moments in this one!
> 
> Thanks as always to [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde) and [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat)! And I’m on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


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